Please help! looking for the date of a friends death?

Question:Is there a FREE website I can go to look up the information on a friends death. I know the persons name, city, and state. Please help, all I get is these sites wanting me to become a member and charge me a fee. All I am wanting is the details about the persons death. Thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Is there a FREE website I can go to look up the information on a friends death. I know the persons name, city, and state. Please help, all I get is these sites wanting me to become a member and charge me a fee. All I am wanting is the details about the persons death. Thanks!

Dooder, it depends completely on when this happened.
www.rootsweb.com has a free version of the social security death index. It CAN be several months before the info is in that file. If you run the name (assuming it is not last week), you should be able to find them there, with the date of the death. Remember, sometimes a person's death can be somewhere other than where they lived.
Obits are normally at the location of residence. Not everyone will have an obituary, and not all newspapers are on the internet. One approach is to google the name of the person using quotation marks. You can also look for the newspaper in the right town (even if the obit is not posted.. you CAN contact them, sometimes by email, sometimes old fashioned pick up the phone).
You describe as a friend.. this usually means that you don't have authority to get the death certificate, which includes the cause of death. Family sometimes wants that kept private. If an illness, that may be included in an obituary.
If you take a few minute to edit your question with the friend's name and location (estimate the date), someone coming behind me will probably see if they can locate it for you.
edit-
it is incorrect to say that birth and death certificates are public information. BOTH are restricted records.

if the death is registered then you have the right to such info by contacting the city /county registrar. all info like birth certs etc are in fact open to public information, good luck.

It takes two or three months for an entry to appear in the SSDI. My father died November 10 last year and I think I finally found his listing in early January this year.

In the search, list as little info as you can. You (or the SSDI!) light have his first name recorded wrong.

Depending on how old it is, you can probably find his/her obit at legacy.com. Legacy.com "hosts" the obituary sites of more than 500 leading US newspapers. If it isn't very old, the obit will be free. How long the obit is available free of cost varies by newspaper. Even if you had to pay for it, though, it is only $2.95. (All of this is online, too.)

Also try obitsarchive.com. You'll have to pay for the obit, but it is also only $2.95.

OR You can probably use obitsarchive for FREE at local library -- call around to libraries in your area. (The database is also known as "American's Obituaries and Death Notices.") Hundreds of US papers are included, many dating back to the 1980s.

Here in the UK, BMD certificates remain Private and they have since being issued for the first time on 1st July 1837 when civil registration began. I don't think they will ever be made available for public information.