How to find out if someone has died in the UK: death records, notices and searches

How do you find out if someone is deceased in the UK?

The surest way to find out if someone is deceased is to find their death registration, because a death in the UK has to be registered with the civil registration service in the nation where it happened, and that record is then indexed by name. England and Wales share one index held by the General Register Office (GRO), whilst Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own, so the first step is to work out where the person was likely to have been living when they died.

The registration route has one weakness, which is timing. The most recent deaths take a while to reach the online indexes, so if you are trying to confirm something you heard about last month, a death notice, a funeral announcement or a probate record is often the quicker signal, and the official record follows. It often takes more than one of the sources below to be sure, and it makes sense to start with the free ones.

Where do you start if you have only heard that someone may have died?

Death notices and obituaries are usually the fastest place to look, because families often place them so that people know when and where the funeral will be. Local newspapers carry them, many of them online, as do websites that publish funeral notices, so a search for the person's full name together with the town where they lived will often turn up a notice with the funeral date and the funeral director's name. Our guide to death notices and obituaries explains what these usually contain.

If a notice names a funeral director, ringing to ask whether they can pass a message or a card to the family is a reasonable next step. Mutual friends, former neighbours or a church or club the person belonged to can also help. Social media is less reliable, because a profile filled with tributes, or one that has been turned into a memorial page, suggests a death but does not tell you when or where it was registered.

How do you search the death index for England and Wales?

The GRO describes its death index as a public index listing basic details of every death recorded in England and Wales since 1837, and part of it can be searched free online. According to the GRO's own FAQ, the online indexes cover deaths from 1837 to 1957 and from 1984 up to two years ago, which means a death in the last couple of years may not be there yet, and you will need a free account on the GRO website to order a certificate.

FreeBMD, a charity run by volunteers, has transcribed much of the same index, covering the period 1837 to 1999, although its own home page says the whole period has not yet been transcribed. It is free to use, which makes it a useful first check for older deaths, particularly the 1958 to 1983 gap in the GRO's online index, although an entry that is missing from FreeBMD may simply not have been transcribed yet. Complete sets of the GRO indexes on microfiche can also be viewed free at a small number of libraries, including the British Library and the Library of Birmingham.

Each index entry gives the name, the registration district and a reference number, and from 1984 the index is arranged by year rather than by quarter. Noting the reference number matters, because it makes ordering a certificate cheaper and quicker.

How do you order a death certificate to confirm a death?

A certificate is the formal confirmation, and in England and Wales you order it through the GRO. GOV.UK's certificate ordering page says certificates cost £12.50 and are sent 4 days after you apply if you have the index reference number. Without one, each search costs £3.50 extra and the certificate is sent 15 working days after you apply, and a priority service costs £38.50, with next working day dispatch if you order by 4pm. The GRO adds that for deaths in the last 50 years the online form asks for further details about the person, and that ordering by phone or post costs more than ordering online.

A death certificate shows the date and place of death, the person's age and occupation, the cause of death, and the name of the informant (the person who registered the death) and their relationship to the person who died. The informant's details are often the most useful part if you are trying to reach the family, which is why the Government Legal Department suggests that people trying to trace relatives get the certificate and contact the person who registered the death.

Can a probate search tell you whether someone has died?

A probate record is strong evidence of a death, because a grant is only issued once someone has died and their estate needs dealing with. GOV.UK's probate search covers England and Wales for deaths after 1857, and a new record appears online about 14 days after the grant is issued, so it will not help in the first weeks or months, and GOV.UK notes that probate may not be needed at all, for example where everything was held jointly and passes automatically to the surviving owner. That means a result confirms a death, but no result tells you very little either way.

Our guide to checking whether probate has been granted explains how the search works and what a result shows, and our guide to finding a will covers what to do if you need the will itself. Deceased estates notices in The Gazette, which the Government Legal Department also suggests checking, are another public record that can be searched by name.

How do you search burial and cremation records?

Burial and cremation registers are kept by the councils, cemeteries and crematoria that hold the funerals, and Deceased Online brings many of them together in one searchable database. You can start a free search with just a surname, although you need a free account to see the results, which also gives you the advanced search, and you then buy vouchers to view items such as register scans or grave photographs. Its coverage is limited to the authorities that have joined, which are listed on its coverage page, so not finding someone there does not mean they are alive.

Deceased Online also says that, apart from gravestone images and inscriptions, it holds back information that may relate to living people, such as who applied for a burial or cremation, until it is at least fifteen years old. For a recent death, a direct call to the bereavement services team at the local council is often more productive. The council is also worth contacting if you suspect the person had no family, since the Government Legal Department notes that the local authority where someone died may have arranged the funeral.

How do you check for a death in Scotland or Northern Ireland?

Scottish deaths are recorded in the statutory register of deaths, which dates from 1 January 1855 and is searched by name on ScotlandsPeople, run by National Records of Scotland. The ScotlandsPeople guide to death records explains that you need to register and log in, that images of entries from 1855 to 1974 can be viewed online, and that for entries from 1975 onwards you order an official certificate, because of a 50 year privacy cut-off. A certificate costs £12, with further copies of the same certificate at £10 each, and ScotlandsPeople warns that events registered in the last two years may not yet be available to view or order.

In Northern Ireland, the General Register Office for Northern Ireland (GRONI) holds deaths registered from 1 January 1864. The nidirect guide to GRONI's records explains that only death records over 50 years old can be viewed online, so for anything more recent you either book a place in the public search room in Belfast or order a certificate if you know the details. GRONI's free online name search tells you how many matching records exist without showing them, and fuller searches use credits costing £0.50 each. A certificate ordered from GRONI after registration costs £15 for the first copy and £8 for each extra copy bought at the same time.

What if you are worried someone is unwell or missing rather than dead?

If you think someone may be in danger now, call 999, because police.uk says that is the number to use when there is an immediate danger to life, and 101 is for non-emergency enquiries. Police.uk also lets you report a missing person online, and that route is better than searching records if the person has simply stopped answering and you fear something has happened.

Doctors and hospitals are bound by confidentiality, and that does not end with death. The General Medical Council's guidance states that a doctor's duty of confidentiality persists after a patient has died, and the Access to Health Records Act 1990 (with an equivalent Order in Northern Ireland) gives a right of access to a deceased person's records only to their personal representative and anyone who may have a claim arising from the death. If you are not next of kin, it usually works better to ask the staff to pass your details to the family than to ask for information directly.

What should you do if you find out you are next of kin or the executor?

If the search confirms a death and you turn out to be the closest relative, or you know you were named as executor, the practical responsibilities may fall to you. Our guide to what being next of kin means sets out what you are and are not responsible for, and our guide to what an executor does covers the role if you were named in the will.

If the person died without a will and with no relatives entitled to inherit, their estate passes to the Crown as bona vacantia, and the Government Legal Department publishes an unclaimed estates list, which it updates regularly, for England and Wales. If you find the person there and believe you are an entitled relative, you will need to prove the relationship, for example with birth, marriage or death certificates.

What to do next

1. Search death notices and funeral notice sites using the person's full name and home town.

2. Check the GRO online index or FreeBMD for England and Wales, ScotlandsPeople for Scotland, or GRONI for Northern Ireland.

3. Order a death certificate if you need formal confirmation or the informant's details.

4. Check the probate search, The Gazette and Deceased Online for further signals.

5. If you are now responsible for the estate, read up on the next of kin and executor roles before contacting organisations.

If it turns out that you are the person dealing with the estate, the next job is usually telling the banks, insurers, utilities and subscription services the person used, which can take a long time when you did not know them well or have no paperwork to go on. Legacy Trail's free notification service contacts those companies on your behalf, and our Account Discovery Service searches for accounts the family does not know about before notifying them.