Why Public Death Records Are Important In A Missing People Search
A missing people search is often performed by many people for various reasons. A person may have left home and left no note or trace to their family who are worried about them. Alternatively, a company may be owed money for a product or service rendered and needs to find the individual so that he/she can pay up.
Public death records are the last piece of information pertaining to an individual. They usually include the death certificate and obituaries. They can also include details of date or birth, marriages, cause of death and summaries of coroner reports.
In a missing people search, public death records should be considered. Whilst it may be considered a dead end and the learning of the most grave and least satisfying outcome, it can also mean an easy and sudden finality to your investigation with little or no reason to go on further.
Death records originally consisted only of old and worn documents stored in several locations around the country. With the advent of the internet and cross linked databases, such records are now available online – indeed the government even encourage electronic filing of public death records because this leads to great costs savings having not employed official data gatherers and others to assist in the process.
As you can see, public death records are very important in a missing people search. Due to the easy availability of such records, they may as well be searched early on in the process because the mechanism is so easy to use and cheap to access. Although the outcome may be considered unlikely, especially to within a few years of the initial “missing” report (official or otherwise), peace of mind can be obtained if no results are returned i.e. if there is no registered official death of the person concerned.