Would like to compile a list to resources, both free and paid, that other admins have used to locate missing, living and passed, classmates.

FYI here is a recap of what I have found on this forum - primarily a list for locating obits.

The SSDI part of this one is free and it's always current within a week or two:
http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/ssdi/
And this one lets you narrow down the dates or guess at the last name:
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
We check this one for obits; free if recent:
http://www.legacy.com/ns/obitfinder/obituary-search.aspx?landing=1
Google alerts will do regular searches for any phrases and let you know when something pops up. We have it searching for "graduated from [high school]" and "graduate of [high school]" to catch other recent obits: http://www.google.com/alerts
Also when using
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

Don't forget your hometown library. By searching local newspaper archives we located dates and full obituaries for most. Often, by locating notices about family members who remained in town, we found classmate married names and locations for those that moved away.

Check with the County Clerk's office in your county seat to search through marriage records (to locate married names of missing female class members.) Make a note of the town where the groom was from -- it will help later to search for that surname on whitepages.com in the groom's city and state. You might run across a sibling or other relative who knows the whereabouts of the couple.
Search through the County Clerk's death records to locate dates and causes of deaths. Then with the date of death you can search the microfilm records of the local newspaper to find obituaries.
Of course to be found in the County Clerk's records, the marriage or death must have occurred within the county. ?
findagrave.com

Americas deaths and obituaries. It is available through libaries that have permium resources. If you find the libary has it available, get a libary card and you can search from home. I had to get mine from a larger city libary that is 1 1/2 hours away. So you might have to do some searching to see what library has it available. It will have to be in the state you live to get the card. But well worth the search. I also use Reference USA through the library to find lost classmates.

Thanks for the list. I also found this "Free" site the most helpful. It is best to use the "FamilySearch2" search engine.

http://www.stevemorse.org/ssdi/ssdi.html?engine=https%3A//www.familysearch.org/search/records/index

I like using obituaries.com to find those who have passed it is also a free site.

In the past I have used usa-people-search.com, intelius.com and zabasearch.com but only the free search part of these. whitepages.com is sometimes helpful if usa-people-search or intelius give you a hint at state or town. obitsarchive.com has been good to find parents of classmates where the obit sometimes states the names and locations of children, but it is not free. If you find a "hit" that looks promising you can look at it for either a one-time fee or a monthly fee. What I did was sign up for the monthly fee (around $20)when I started searching so that I could do all the searching I wanted, then cancelled it at the end of 30 days. The other thing I did was to look at yearbooks from my high school for the six years before and after my year, for siblings of classmates. Especially where the missing classmate is a woman, it is sometimes easier to locate a brother and make contact. Of our 486 classmates I have 11 that I have not found (but still looking!), and I have assisted five other classes in finding their classmates, and a class from another school. It's a challenge and takes lots of time and patience! Good luck!

A significant change to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was enacted in March 2014. New entries to publicly available versions of the SSDI will not be available for three years beginning on the date of an individual's death.

I have had good luck using most of the mentioned searching resources. familyseasrch.org has been especially helpful! One of our committee members bought into the peoplesmart.com site and I found info that I couldn't find using the free sites.....so that was good! Now, however, I am willing to pay IF I can find a search site which yields results. I have a free trial for Ancestry.com, which gives lots of info on marriages (we need to find married names!) but absolutely nothing for New York State! (It seems many states keep those records private.)
I need suggestions, please! Especially from any New York State administrators!

Barbara Rose

Barbara,
I found this site helpful as well as our county library system.

http://www.deathindexes.com/newyork/index.html