How do I find out whether someone is still living or has died?

[AFrustratingSituation]

What is the quickest, cheapest, easiest and most straightforward way of checking whether someone is still living or has died?

Thank you.

Do the adult children have any Facebook presence? Most people's privacy settings prevent searching through posts or comments too much, but you might find a reference to the person especially if they've died, commiserations or that kind of thing. That would at least give you a rough date. I agree that it's easier in Ireland, I was lucky enough to find a very detailed community newsletter on Facebook which helped me trace someone.

This.

You can search the indexes.

Ancestry don't have recent deaths. The GRO is your best option. Followed by electoral role.

I have tracked someone down for a friend before. Friend could only remember her first name and thought she knew her married surname but I couldn't get anything from it.

She eventually found an old letter with an old address on from 30 years ago. I was able to narrow down options from the address using historic electoral role info from Ancestry. A woman with the married name friend has thought, was living in the same area but had moved not far away.

The electoral role helped me confirm because of who else was registered at the address and because I'd managed to confirm her age using info from Ancestry.

Thank you all for the suggestions!

Things I know for sure:

This person's first and last name. The addresss they lived at from mid 2000s to about 18 month's ago. I know the house was sold through Internet searches but not where they moved to. This person wasn't named on the house deeds. I don't know if that will have changed. I don't know their date of birth only the decade in which they were born.

I know they have adult children and (adult now) grandchildren. I dont know any of their names. I wouldn't be able to contact them about this anyway.

I haven't had contact for over 13 years.

I know I'm being evasive and not particularly helpful. I could easily explain why I haven't had contact and why I want to know this information but I don't want to discuss that because people would (rightly) feel very strongly about it. Not about why I want to know, I think people would be very understanding of that and why I can't just ask someone but I'm not looking for opinions on the situation.

I literally just want to know if they are dead or alive.

I'll try a couple of the suggestions on here.

They moved to St Catherine's House in 1970.

Knowing their first and last name and their address until fairly recent then 192.com is a good start point (especially if you know who else was in the house) as that may give you middle initials if they have any.

Which with the decade they were born would let you find a birth to get a more accurate age.

If their adult children lived with them at that address at any point it would also give you names to look up as well.

Thanks. No, adult children weren't living with them at that point.

Break the search down into parts. First, I’d find their DOB. Use FreeBMD for this or the relevant OPC (parish) records if you know where they were born. Having found that, search on the GRO site for their death. You can also use FreeBMD to see if they married and, by cross-referencing, find their spouse. Searching for their spouse might give you information.

You can also search local papers’ funeral notices and Findagrave, aswell as 192.com. You can sometimes see who they lived with on 192 without an account.

It can be really difficult sometimes, I tried everything to see if a family member had died (they’d been missing for a number of years). I tried Facebook, google, Salvation Army but in the end I found she’d died by searching death certificates online. It took a little while but I managed to narrow my search down, then ordered the certificate. I rang up the place of death and spoke to a few people so managed to find out the hospice where they’d died and place they were buried.

It depends on the lengths you want to go to and how badly you need to know if they died.
You know the house was sold 18 months ago. Could you knock on the door and say to the current owners that you're very sorry to bother them but you are looking for the previous occupants, do they know the circumstances on how the house was sold?
They will know details of the chain, so if the person was deceased when it was sold, or was going into care.
You could also try ringing round care homes in the area, and saying you want to see how your - make something up, your dad/mum whatever - is doing and give them the name see if they start telling you. If not, you simply say you have the wrong name and hang up.
If all internet searches are bringing nothing up, you're just going to have to do a little old fashioned snooping.
This is all PIs will do

They moved to St Catherine's House in 1970.

They haven't been there for many years either.

I'm not sure that there is still anywhere you can go and look at the actual index volumes.

You know the house was sold 18 months ago. Could you knock on the door and say to the current owners that you're very sorry to bother them but you are looking for the previous occupants, do they know the circumstances on how the house was sold?

God, that's an interesting one!

I don't know if I'd have the confidence to do this. Or how I'd feel about actually seeing the house again. But it would certainly give me an answer as of 18 months ago!

Worth thinking about...

Not helpful but Nicola Coughlan was on Graham Norton (I think) making a joke about how easy it was in Ireland to find out if someone is dead or alive. It’s called something like deaths.ie
it shouldn’t be hard really should it

I did a general Google search to find out about my mums relatives for her. It worked as people list obituaries. It didn't help us find who were living though....

It really shouldn't!

Try FreeBMD.

I've just checked freeBMD but their search period only goes up to 2000.

Would it be worth speaking to the estate agent who handled the sale, if it was only 18 months ago and they are named online in relation to it? They may be reluctant to discuss the owner or the circumstances in which it was sold, of course.

Yes FreeBMD only goes up to 2000 but it should help you find other useful info you dont know like date and place of birth. Might give you ideas on possible locations if they moved 'back home' as some older people do.

Is it Elvis? Because I don’t believe he’s dead either

Honestly I don’t know how you manage without rip.ie website we use in Ireland 😂🫢

You can do the microfiche at the British library, but to physically search you have to go to local offices now. Which is a pain if you don’t know where something took place.

Not like you could many years ago.

I wondered what had happened to a friend. I looked them up in the death records on Family Search. I found they had died in 2019 in England. I only knew their name, approximate age and an address, which I was given by them in the 80s.

Haha, yes it’s called rip.ie and I’d say pretty much every death notice goes on there.

Good luck op

There are many Ancestry trees which are incorrect even with living relatives being recorded incorrectly. Dead ones more so as many people use info from others trees which are incorrect. They do not read them properly and end up with things like born in Middlesex 1975, Died in Brighton 1942. It is repeated time and time until it gets lost in the distance.
People take things as gospel and don't read the details properly if at all.
This is my line of work and I frequently see this.
It can skew trees and people, while proud of their tree, they can end up with dozens if not 100's of 'relatives' who they aren't related to.