Court-ready death verification report (sample)

Professionals buy when they can see the deliverable. Below is an illustrative example of how documented death verification can appear in a file—sources, timestamps, negative search proof, and monitoring history. Exact fields depend on plan and workflow.

Prefer a narrative walkthrough? See the court-ready death verification guide.

Used for professional workflows

ObituaryMonitor is built for teams that need defensible records—not casual lookups.

Probate and estate administration
Debt collection and asset recovery
Insurance claims and investigations
Skip tracing and locate investigations
Genealogy and heir research
Financial institution estate processing

What you can show in the file

Court-ready documentation
Exportable verification reports
Audit logs and negative search certificates

Illustrative example only — not a real person or matter

Verification report

Matter VM-2026-0142

Subject: J. A. Mercer · Last known: Columbus, OH

Generated: 2026-03-12 14:22 UTC

Outcome: Match — obituary located

Summary: Multi-source check completed. High-confidence obituary match on monitored funeral home domain. Corroborating public index consulted. Export includes source URLs and query timestamps for diligence review.

Sources checked

Source	Query	Result
Funeral home & aggregator coverage	name + city + DOB window	Hit
Public death index (where applicable)	SSN last-4 + name (if supplied)	No row / pending
Probate index (jurisdiction)	estate search — last county	Not yet filed

Obituary capture (example)

screenshot / PDF excerpt — illustrative

In loving memory

It is with sadness that we announce the passing of J. A. Mercer, age 78, of Columbus, Ohio…

Source URL retained in export · captured 2026-03-11 09:41 UTC

Timestamp log (example)

2026-03-10T18:05:12Z  watchlist_created   user=team@firm.com
2026-03-10T18:06:03Z  scan_scheduled      scope=nationwide_obits
2026-03-11T09:41:22Z  match_candidate     conf=0.94  source=funeral_home
2026-03-11T09:42:01Z  user_acknowledged   export=pdf

Negative search certificate (example)

When no obituary is found, teams still need proof of diligence. A negative search record shows what was queried and when.

Negative search certificate

Within the reporting window, no high-confidence obituary match was identified for the subject using the supplied identity fields and monitored sources. Full query log attached.

window_start=2026-02-01 window_end=2026-03-12 queries=42 sources=16000+

Monitoring log (example)

[monitor] 2026-03-11 09:40:18  poll_ok   new_documents=1
[monitor] 2026-03-11 09:40:19  diff      funeralhome.example/obits/mercer-ja
[alert]   2026-03-11 09:41:05  notify    channel=email team=probate@firm.com

Case notes (example)

2026-03-11 — Paralegal L.M. reviewed automated match. Family name and city aligned with intake. Recommended hold on creditor mailings pending certificate.

2026-03-12 — Attorney approved export for creditor file.

Continue along the death verification and monitoring path—workflow, deliverables, use cases, and service.