What is the death index for California?

Death indices for California include databases on RootsWeb and Ancestry.com. As of October 2014, RootsWeb lets users search records from 1940 to 1997, while Ancestry.com features the Social Security Death Index back to 1935. A separate Ancestry.com search looks for death records from 1905 to 1939.

The RootsWeb death search contains more than 9.35 million records, searchable by last name, birth year and birth place. The Social Security Death Index searches for records by someone's name, date of birth, date of death, place of birth and place of death. The possibility of producing a viable record increases when more data is supplied by the searcher. A keyword search on Ancestry.com allows users to search obituary records or military data.