Every service on this page is a door to the same underlying records. Each card says what the service does, what it costs, and which task it is built for. The free government sources at the bottom are the layer everything else indexes — start there when the question is about the past.
Paid and freemium services
Find a Grave
Volunteer cemetery memorials: names, dates, headstone photos, and obituary links. Free to search and read; membership is optional. Best for locating a specific grave. Official site: https://www.findagrave.com/
BillionGraves
GPS-tagged photographs of headstones, searchable by cemetery. Free search and map; viewing memorial details requires a subscription. Best for walking a cemetery with a checklist. Official site: https://billiongraves.com/
FamilySearch
The largest genuinely free record index: census, vital, military, probate, and the Social Security Death Index. Best for a death date or a household before you spend anything. Official site: https://www.familysearch.org/
Ancestry
The deepest commercial index of American records: census, vital, newspapers, probate, trees. Free search results, paid documents. Best for sustained US family research. Official site: https://www.ancestry.com/
MyHeritage
Global family platform with its own grave index, DNA tools, and photo restoration. US collections are real but thinner than Ancestry’s. Best for families with immigrant roots. Official site: https://www.myheritage.com/
PeopleLegacy
Assembles licensed public records into a single chronological report about a person. Free previews, paid full report. Best for one fast composite picture of a deceased person’s trail. Official site: https://www.peoplelegacy.com/
Whitepages
Current contact data: name, age range, possible addresses, phones, relatives. Free previews, paid details. Best for identifying and locating a living person quickly. Official site: https://www.whitepages.com/
BeenVerified
Subscription background-style reports assembled from county, court, phone, and property records. Very limited free preview. Best for one thorough check when search accuracy matters more than price. Official site: https://www.beenverified.com/
Free government and public sources
State vital records offices
Death, birth, marriage, and divorce certificates are issued by the state or county where the event was recorded. Most states run an official vital records web portal with ordering instructions and fees. Search “vital records” plus the state name; the official site ends in .gov or the state’s domain.
Newspaper archives (state libraries)
Every state library system digitizes its newspapers with a free name-searchable index. This is the most underused tool in people research — the local paper published the death notices in the first place.
Local police crime maps and open-data portals
Many departments publish incident-level data through official crime maps or city open-data portals. For the blocks around an address, filter the last twelve months. Official data beats commercial “neighborhood scores” every time.
FBI Crime Data Explorer
The federal statistical layer: violent and property crime counts and rates by agency, city, and county, searchable by year. Use it for the five-year trend and honest jurisdiction comparisons. Official site: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/
Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website
The federated search across all state sex offender registries, by address and radius. Official site: https://www.nsopw.gov/
VA Nationwide Gravesite Locator
Official burial locations for veterans and eligible family members in national and state veterans cemeteries. Official site: https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/
Read more about these services in the side-by-side comparison table, and start your actual search from the task hubs: Deceased & Graves, Reconnect, and Neighbors.