I want to access death cerifitcates after 1957 why does it stop there and where are the FREE viewings?

Question

I want to access death cerifitcates after 1957 why does it stop there and where are the FREE viewings?

Answer 1

Each state record is different;  but you can search the Social Security Death Index.  The information is free, here is a site to for look ups.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/genealo...

Answer 2

All death certificates are public records, but they're not completely public. There is information about living people contained in them, such as the informant's name and address, as well as information on the surviving spouses. Because that information can be misused when people die (and it IS misused to play on people's emotions), the counties protect that information from public viewing for a certain amount of time. You can find out IF the person died, but the cause of death, date of birth, and information about the rest of their family is protected for a given amount of time to prevent them from being preyed upon.

As for "free viewings", if you are a direct descendent, you can go to the County building where the person died and request to see a copy of the death certificate. They won't necessarily print it for you for free, but they will let you see it. That's as close as you get to a free viewing because the sale of legal documents is one of the main ways that counties pay their bills. The documents are free for publication in the US after 72 years...and even then only if someone else does the copying and pays for the website. Companies like Ancestry.com are willing to pay for that privilege of copying records, but it's literally one county at a time.

Answer 3

While I don't know your State, the 1957 stop date and "free viewings' caught my eye.  Missouri has recently increased their death certificates on line to 1957.  Yes, that's 50 years. Policy? Maybe, but budgets also play a role. Any way it's a function of the MO Secretary of State's office and they should be free viewing; at one time you had to send for a copy for a few. If it's not your State maybe the situation is similar.

Answer 4

Apparently the state you were looking at has a 50 year rule.  In Texas we can get death certificates 25 years after someone died regardless of the relationship.  However, the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics Death Index is on Ancestry.Com and goes through 2000. It is not the certificates.  They don't show the parents of the deceased.  Ancestry.Com does have some indexes, not certificates,  for other states.  I don't think they are very as recent as Texas.

Answer 5

It stops there because that is what the law says. Every state regulates WHO has access to a death certificate, and under what limitations.  Nor is any agency under any obligation to put them online for free, even if SOME states choose to do so (under their own standards).

As to why.. it is because persons have rights to confidentiality, not to mention that some death certificates have been used for fraudulent reasons.