History:
AmericanMemorials.com began daily data collection of current deaths on March 1, 2000. Approximately 20% of all deaths were collected through May 2002. Beginning in September 2002, the subscription-based ObituaryRegistry.com was launched and the data-collection volume was increased to approximately 80% of all deaths on a daily basis.   Since then, additional resources have been added and systems have been refined bringing our service up to its current 90% level.

Data Specifications:
Obituary Registry obituaries and death notices are obtained daily through manual and automated processes, primarily from thousands of online newspapers.  In addition, participating funeral homes submit recent death notices and obituaries as a service to their families.  The database currently contains approximately 4 million records, specifying some or all of the following:  first name, middle initial, last name, maiden name, approximate date of death, city and state of residence, state from which resource was collected and the most complete obituary available in the resource at the time of collection.  Obituary and death notice records vary greatly in terms of length and content depending on the resource and the region in which they are published, but should usually include the survivors and funeral arrangements and often include biographical information about the deceased's place of birth, education, career, interests, associations and accomplishments.

Obituaries and death notices collected in the Obituary Registry are "public notice" records, usually submitted to newspapers by family or funeral homes.  Not included in the database are "news story" obituaries about local and national celebrities.

ObituaryRegistry.com utilizes "full-text" indexing for each record in this database providing maximum searching capability of all content for subscribers with access to the Keyword search field. 

Disclaimer: 
ObituaryRegistry.com only collects records from sources generally accepted as reliable, but does not specifically author or authenticate any of the obituaries or death notices in our database.  Therefore, although the database can be regarded as authoritative, there is no guarantee as to the accuracy of the information the records contain.

History:  (from www.ssa.org)
The  Death Master File (DMF) was created in 1980 as a requirement of the Freedom of Information Act.

Data Specifications:  (from www.ssa.org)
The DMF is updated based on reports SSA receives and contains approximately 75 million records, including Social Security beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, with verified and unverified reports of death.  If available in SSA records, and as required by consent judgement, the file contains the deceased’s SSN, first name, middle name, surname, date of death, date of birth, state, county, zip code of the last address on our records, and zip code of the lump sum death benefit payment.

SSA obtains death reports from many sources, with 90 percent of the reports obtained from family members and funeral homes.  The remainder of the information comes from States and other Federal agencies through data exchanges and reports from postal authorities and financial institutions.

These death reports of the approximately two and one half million people who die annually are matched against SSA payment records.   Since studies have shown that death reports from family members and funeral homes are over 99% accurate, SSA does not verify these reports before terminating benefits and adding the records to the Death Master file. Reports obtained through data exchanges require verification through SSA field offices before an individual’s death is posted to the DMF.  This includes death data received from the States.

Death reports on persons not receiving Social Security benefits are not verified, as the SSA does not have address or other identifying information on these individuals.

"Verification of death" means that a reporter, usually someone in the beneficiaries’ home, a representative payee, a nursing home, a doctor or hospital, has agreed that the person is deceased and, if the date of death is an issue, corroborates the date reported. 

Once death reports received from States are verified, the state data is then considered SSA data.  This is important, because some states limit (re)disclosure of their records to only Federal benefit paying agencies.  Section 205 (r) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 405 (r) gives the States this authority to limit SSA’s (re)disclosure of their death records.  Therefore, if SSA is providing death information to other parties, the agency is careful to distinguish that the released information is SSA data.

Disclaimer: 
The products advertised on this website contain the complete and official Social Security Administration (SSA) database extract, as well as updates to the full file of persons reported to SSA as being deceased. SSA authorizes the use of this database as an identity verification tool, but notes that the Death Master File (DMF) may contain inaccuracies. Thus, SSA cannot guarantee the accuracy of the DMF. Therefore, the absence of a particular person on this file is not proof that the individual is alive. Further, in rare instances it is possible for the records of a person who is not deceased to be included erroneously in the DMF