Summary
A death certificate is an official vital record. An obituary is a public memorial or notice. Both can help, but they have different authority, timing, access rules, and error risks.
The main differences
| Source | What it is | Strength | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Death certificate | Official vital record | Most authoritative | May require eligibility and payment. |
| Obituary | Published notice or memorial | Fast and searchable | Family-provided and not universal. |
| Cemetery record | Burial or memorial listing | Good historical signal | May be delayed or contributor-maintained. |
| Death index | Database or research lookup | Useful at scale | May be restricted, delayed, or historical. |
Where official records live
The CDC says the federal government does not maintain files or indexes with identifying information for vital records. Certified copies are handled by state, city, county, or other local vital statistics offices.
Which sources are useful for monitoring?
Obituaries and memorials are usually more useful for timely monitoring because they can appear quickly online. Official records are more authoritative but often slower, restricted, or not accessible for broad consumer monitoring.
Sources
Related guides
Data Sources
The kinds of obituary, memorial, public-record, and external search sources IfTheyDie uses or evaluates.
Coverage and Limitations
What IfTheyDie can monitor today, where coverage can miss deaths, and how to interpret confidence scores.
How to Find Out How Someone Died
Learn where cause-of-death information may appear, why it is often restricted, and how to verify details respectfully and legally.
Want to stop checking manually?
Join the waitlist for IfTheyDie. We are building a monitoring service that watches public obituary and memorial sources and surfaces likely matches for review.
Join the waitlist