The Missouri Death Index // Free searchable database of 2,598,482 deaths in the state of Missouri between 1968-2015. Presented by Reclaim The Records

Search the Missouri Death Index

Given Name

Middle Name

Surname

Include soundalike surnames and close spellings (recommended)
Exact surname spelling only

Date of Death Between...

and

The CSV data files that were used to create this database are also freely available for download.

Tips and Tricks

All fields are optional, only fill out as much as you know. Less is more.
Common nicknames are automatically searched. For example, a search for the given name Bill will also bring up results for William, Will, Billy, etc., and Rebecca will find Becky, Beckie, Rivka, etc.
You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character to search for partial names. For example, a surname search for *berg will match surnames like Greenberg and Eisenberg, or a search for a given name like Jo* will match Joanna, Joseph, JoJo, etc. You can also use a wildcard in the middle of a name, like K*m to find Kareem, Kettleman, Keenam, etc. Note that the soundalike name suggestions will not be as precise if you are using wildcards in your search.

Search Results

Only the top matches from within the first 100 search results will be displayed.

Given Name	Middle Name	Surname	Date of Death

Order a Missouri death certificate

Now that you've found someone listed in the Missouri Death Index, here's how you can order a copy of the actual death certificate.

Order from the Locality

Short Form Faster

"Short form" Missouri death certificates can be ordered from local public health agencies, usually at the county level. Some, but not all, of these agencies offer online ordering through their department websites. See the list of contact information on the Missouri DHSS website.

Ordering vital records from a local public health agency is usually a faster way to get a record than by going to the state, but it does require you to already know which locality (town, city, county) holds the record you want.

Order from the State

Short Form Long Form Slower

Both "long form" and "short form" certified copies of death certificates can be ordered directly from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) in in Jefferson City, Missouri. They accept mailed-in applications (with proper notarized statement), or you can call them to make an in-person appointment.

You may need to include a "tangible interest document" or signed notarized statement authorizing release of the record.

Read the Missouri DHSS website for full information about how to place an order with them.

Order from VitalChek

Short Form Long Form Fastest Expensive

You can also order a copy of a Missouri death certificate from the VitalChek website, which is run by Lexis-Nexis, or by calling them to place an order over the phone. They even offer overnight shipping.

However, VitalChek adds on a substantial shipping and processing fee to all vital records orders, not just the overnighted ones. And after placing your order, you may still need to fax them your "tangible interest document" or notarized statement. They are a third party commercial vendor, not a government agency.

Who can get a Missouri death certificate?

In Missouri, all family members, genealogists representing a family member, and professionally recognized genealogists are eligible to receive copies of death certificates. Others may demonstrate a direct and tangible interest when information is needed for determination or protection of personal or property rights.

Read the Missouri Code of State Regulations - 19 CSR 10-10 or check out the detailed examples on the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) website for more information.

All Missouri death certificates more than fifty years old (i.e. pre-1970) are available online for free public view at the Missouri Secretary of State's "Missouri Digital Heritage" website.

This demo shows a smoothed area chart with an x-axis plot band highlighting an area of interest at the last two points. Plot bands and plot lines are commonly used to draw attention to certain areas or thresholds.

See a name's popularity through time in Missouri

Want to see a particular given name's waxing and waning popularity over time? Enter a common (or uncommon) given name like "Mary" or "Esther" or "Jack" or "Rudolph" in the box above, and hit enter. You'll see a graph of the popularity for just that one name, taken from the past century of Missouri death data.

You can also use an asterisk to do wildcard searches. For example, a search on "Jen*" will return the sum of results for the names Jennifer, Jenny, Jenson, etc.

Try your own name, too!

About the Missouri Death Index

The state of Missouri wasted over $200,000 in taxpayer funds trying to prevent the release of this public information, and the creation of this website. It took a four-year court case to make them follow the law.

In February 2016, the non-profit activist group Reclaim The Records asked the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) for a copy of the state birth index and state death index, by making two requests under the Missouri Sunshine Law.

Initially, it didn't seem like these would be difficult or controversial requests. This basic index data, just names and dates of people who were born or died in the state, were explicitly declared to be open to the public under Missouri state law, not restricted. The information was already in text format, stored in a big state database. DHSS had provided small subsets of the same kind of data to many other requesters before, including journalists, for decades.

All that DHSS needed to do was create an invoice for the requests, using the actual number of hours that a DHSS staffer would need to spend working on them, billed at that employee's usual hourly rate. Then DHSS would ask for and receive payment. And then they would send over the files, either electronically or on a USB drive.

And that would have been the end of it. But that's not what happened.

Screenshot of e-mail from former Missouri State Registrar Garland Land

DHSS knew that Reclaim The Records wanted to put the full state index, almost a century of data, online for free public use, for the first time ever. (That would be this website here!)

But if that happened, it would also mean that DHSS probably wouldn't be able to make any more money selling subsets of that same data over and over in future years, which was revenue that normally would have gone right back into their agency budget.

So DHSS concocted what Judge Patricia S. Joyce would later call "The Secret Plan to Deny the Sunshine Law Requests".

DHSS staff e-mailed the recently retired State Registrar of Missouri, Garland Land, and asked him for advice about the data requests.

Land brazenly advised them to break the Sunshine Law.

And DHSS followed Land's illegal plan completely. Missouri decided to manufacture an absurdly high price estimate for the data extracts, hoping that would make Reclaim The Records give up on their requests and go away, leaving DHSS free to continue selling this legally-unrestricted public data as a monopoly.

DHSS shamelessly quoted an estimate of nearly $1.5 million dollars for the production of the two simple data extracts.

And just as Land had suggested, DHSS then tried to use the ensuing months of delay and legal wrangling as an opportunity to try to ram a new bill through the Missouri state legislature, changing the existing open law and locking up the data forever.

(The actual cost for the data was eventually declared by Judge Joyce to be only 0.17% of that estimate, about $2500. And to their credit, the Missouri General Assembly refused DHSS' request to change the law.)

Screenshot of original cost estimate sent by Missouri DHSS

So Reclaim The Records sued the state of Missouri

And to make a long story short, we kicked their ass in court.

LETTER FROM MISSOURI DEPT OF HEALTH AND SENIOR SERVICES TO RECLAIM THE RECORDS

AUGUST 9, 2016

After several months of haggling about the price of the records under the Missouri Sunshine Law, the Department of Health and Senior Services suddenly attempted to claim that these records were not actually available under the law at all!

LETTER FROM RECLAIM THE RECORDS TO THE MO DEPT OF HEALTH AND SENIOR SERVICES

AUGUST 24, 2016

Our attorney responded to the Department's letter, wherein he helpfully pointed out to them that they were breaking the law. He also warned them that we would be filing a lawsuit if they did not comply with the Sunshine Law. But the state never bothered to respond, nor refute any of the letter.

RECLAIM THE RECORDS VS. MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SENIOR SERVICES

NOVEMBER 23, 2016

Having received no answer to our attorney's letter, we filed in court against the Department in the Circuit Court of Cole County, Missouri on November 23, 2016. The case was bounced around to at least five different Missouri Assistant Attorneys General before finally being decided.

JUDGE'S ORDER FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN FAVOR OF RECLAIM THE RECORDS

APRIL 15, 2020

We won! Here's the judge's acceptance of our motion for summary judgment. We won the records. We won over a hundred thousand dollars in attorneys fees. And we even won $12,000 in fines, for four separate "knowing" and "purposeful" instances of Missouri DHSS breaking the law.

Newsletter #13: November 2016

💰 CYBER MONDAY SALE: 💰
SAVE 100% ON MISSOURI GENEALOGY RECORDS!

Newsletter #31: July 2019

WHY WON'T THE SHOW-ME STATE SHOW THEIR PUBLIC RECORDS TO THE PUBLIC?

Newsletter #36: April 2020

TOTAL LEGAL VICTORY IN MISSOURI FOR GENEALOGY AND OPEN RECORDS!

...and check out how the press covered our case!

NPR / KCUR

Missouri Sunshine Law Request Yields $1.5 Million Tab, Then $5,000, Then Outright Refusal

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Judge blasts state of Missouri over ‘blatant’ violation of Sunshine Law

Associated Press

Judge rules against Missouri agency in open records case

Kansas City Star

Judge fines Missouri agency $12K for violating public records law with ‘secret plan’

TechDirt

Court Tells Agency That Tried To Charge $1.5 Million For A Records Request It Now Owes The Requestor $12,000 In Fines

JDSupra

No Choice in the Matter – Recent Victory for Lathrop GPM Client to Have Significant Impact on Government Disclosure of Coronavirus-Related Data

The Landmark

Attorney: Officials waging war against transparency

The Joplin Globe

DHSS' 'secret' plan shafts Missourians

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Hawley makes Sunshine splash while defending state secrecy in another case

NPR / KCUR

Court's Ruling In Missouri Open-Records Case Could Clear Way For More Access To COVID-19 Data

Donate

Did you find this website helpful? If so, please help us bring even more public data back to the public.

Who made this website?

We're Reclaim The Records, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2015, made up of genealogists, historians, researchers, journalists, and teachers. We use Freedom of Information requests to acquire and publish archival data sets, public records that have never before been available, or not available online.

We focus on government agencies, archives, and libraries that have previously been unwilling to share their data. And if they don't follow the law, we file lawsuits to make them turn over the records. As of September 2020, our organization has filed nine lawsuits (so far) against government agencies large and small, with six suits settled in our favor and three still pending.

We put all the data we win online for free public use, without usage restrictions. After all, our taxes already paid for it and it belongs to all of us.

Data usage

This data is in the public domain. There are no usage restrictions or copyrights attached to it. Feel free to use it however you'd like. But if you put it on your website or republish it, Reclaim The Records would appreciate a little reference or note in your "about this database" source box, and/or a link back to our website, just to acknowledge the work and initiative that went into researching and releasing these records back to the public.

Help us do more

For more information on Reclaim The Records, please visit our website, Like Us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter at @ReclaimTheRecs.

MAKE A DONATION ONLINE AT RECLAIMTHERECORDS.ORG

We're a 501(c)(3) as recognized by the IRS, our EIN is 81-4985446, and donations are tax-deductible in the United States to the amount allowed by law. Your support helps us acquire and publish more records for more cities and states.

If you have any questions or issues, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Thank You

Thank you to our wonderful, intrepid, and diligent attorneys, Bernie Rhodes and Taryn Nash of Missouri law firm Lathrop GPM. We think they were clearly worth every penny, even though the state of Missouri got a little pissy about paying their fees.

Thank you to the Freedom of Information nerds on the FOI-L Listserv for helping us find that excellent legal counsel in the first place. Thank you to MuckRock for helping us learn about the Missouri Sunshine Law and allowing us to file our original requests online.

And most of all, thank you to our long-time supporters and donors. Your generosity and cheerleading enables us to keep reclaiming these records!

The Missouri Death Index

A free searchable database of 2,598,482 deaths registered in the state of Missouri between 1968-2015