Hwo can i find out about a dead family member ?

[Tara]

is there a free website i would be able to find information, photos, etc. about a dead family member ?

[Ted Pack]

Maybe. It depends on how famous they were, when they died and who cared about them. If it was Abraham Lincoln, for instance, there are enough web sites you could read 40 hours a week for 100 years. There isn't a nation-wide site for everyone.

Some find a grave entries have short biographies and pictures; some don't.
http://www.findagrave.com

Some people keep a facebook entry going for a beloved relative who had one. If the person died young and you know what high school they went to, you can find his/her classmates and write to ask if they knew her/him.

Some people devote a page of their personal site to a beloved relative.

His/her obituary is a good place to start. I'll paste my "stock" answer for finding an obit below. Use the advice in it on exact phrase searches in Google plus the word "biography" instead of "obituary".

You could try Google / Bing / Yahoo Images for pictures.

If you live in the county the person did, go to the main branch of the public library and talk to a reference librarian.

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Looking for an ordinary person on the other hand, is searching for a needle in a haystack. It is like fly fishing, too; you have to cast a number of times and you still may not find anything.

It may be in
http://www.obitcentral.com/
http://www.legacy.com/NS/
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi

The newspaper that ran it may have it in their archives. Usually they keep it for 7, 30 or 90 days, though.

If the person died in Preble County, Ohio, prior to 1950, the county library web site may have it. By extension, the county library site for the county in question should be one of the "pools" you cast into. So should the US Gen Web site for the county, the Ancestry query board for the county and the GenForum board for the county.

If you live in the county, you can sometimes find the obit in the microfilmed newspapers. Sometimes there wasn't one, especially if the person died in a drug deal or the family was poor and the newspaper charged for obits. Big city newspapers don't print obits for everyone because they'd run out of space.

If you don't live in the county, you can send the library a name, date, SASE and $5 and request a copy. They will either try for it or return your check.

http://www.tedpack.org/obit.html
has two ways you can sometimes find a volunteer willing to look it up for you, with links and etiquette.

Sometimes you can find the obit in Google with an exact search. Try all forms of the name, enclosing it in quotation marks:

"Tom Edison"
"Thomas Edison"
"Thomas A Edison"
"Thomas Alva Edison"

"Edison, Tom"
"Edison, Thomas"
"Edison, Thomas A"
"Edison, Thomas Alva"

The case isn't important, nor do you need the commas. You and I know that "Thomas Alva Edison" and "Edison, Thomas Alva" are the same person, but a computer doesn't. You do have to use quotes ("), not apostrophes ('). Add "Obituary" and other words as needed outside of the quotation marks if you get too many hits for the name alone.

"Tom Edison" obituary
"Edison, Tom" obituary
"Thomas Edison" obituary
etc.

[lohr_gen]

Two of your best options would be the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) [1] and Rootsweb's World Connect [2]. Depending on the time frame, the Latter Day Saints' new project is very good [3].

None of those will have pictures, as is the case with nearly all genealogy websites unless they are private individuals. Simply Google the name you're interested. Your single best resource for pictures is to use Google Images [4].

Many states are now putting free databases for vital records (birth, marriage, death). You may want to provide some more particulars about your relatives, especially location, dates, and what type of information you're looking for.

[GrayPict]

You can try looking on Familysearch.org, it is free and has as many records as Ancestry as well as research tips, click the library tab.