Search the Social Security Death Index
Every death reported to the Social Security Administration from 1936 through 2011 — 90,382,560 records. Free, complete, and no account required.
What this is
The Social Security Death Master File is the United States government's record of deaths reported to the Social Security Administration. Genealogists have relied on it for decades: it is often the fastest way to confirm a date of death, pin down a date of birth, and find where someone was living at the end of their life.
It is a public record, but in practice it has become hard to reach. The large genealogy sites put it behind a subscription or an account wall. This is a complete copy, searchable by anyone, with no login, no paywall, and no limit on how many records you look at.
What we leave out
Every other copy of this file publishes the deceased person's full Social Security number. We do not — not the whole number and not the last four digits.
A name, a date of birth and a Social Security number together are exactly what is needed to file a fraudulent tax return in a dead person's name. Congress restricted access to this file in 2013 for that reason. Nothing in genealogy requires the number itself, so we publish the state that issued it instead.
Records by year of death
Coverage is thin before the mid-1960s, when the Administration began keeping death reports in electronic form. This shape is a fact about the record-keeping, not about mortality.