Alaska Death Records: How to perform a Alaska Death Records Search

In Alaska, death records are publicly available documents that can serve several purposes; a death record can make a world of difference in the settlement of an insurance or social benefit claim by relatives of dead persons. 

It can also find value during court proceedings as are encountered in cases of guardianship and parentage, among others.

Whichever your reason for seeking out an Alaska death record, you can be sure to find the record of interest to you. 

This is subject to the fulfillment of certain conditions of eligibility and the provision of the necessary search fees and identification data, as you'll find out in this article. 

Death Records in Alaska  

Alaska death records serve to take account of the deaths recorded in the state and register them in documents that can be used for official purposes. 

These death records are classified as Vital Records in the state and are primarily kept in the custody of the bureau of vital statistics, Alaska.

Access to these public records depends on the eligibility of the requester and the period in which the related death was recorded. 

A few of these publicly available records are also available for collection on third-party websites as well as in census statistics, Bible records, newspaper publications, and other sources. 

Information In An Alaska Death Record

The scope of data contained in Alaska death records is both informational and official. 

They feature the personal information of the deceased person and account for the circumstances surrounding the death of the record-holder.

These include the time, date, and cause of death as well as a medical certification of the death—the Vital Event. 

They also contain entries for the name of the decedent's next of kin or family member. 

This is in addition to an archive/certificate or index number that is representative of the document in question.  

How Alaska Death Records Are Created

The mortuary or funeral home is usually the first stop that is encountered en route to the creation of death records in Alaska. 

This process is kick-started by the funeral director who must be furnished with certain information about the deceased as provided by the decedent's family members. 

They'll usually ask about the name and gender of the deceased person, their age, and place of residence at the time of their death.

Other than that, the time and cause of death are also provided by the decedent's physician, a coroner, or a medical examiner. 

This information is compiled and documented in a file before being submitted to the Health Analytics and Vital Records department of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. 

There, the death is formally registered and the death record certified. The next couple of sections discusses some of the places to find Alaska death records. 

The Alaska Bureau of Vital Records

As the primary record custodian and official issuer of certified death certificates in Alaska, the Bureau of Vital Records is the go-to agency for death record queries. 

Also referred to as the Health Analytic and Vital Records office with two offices in Juneau and Anchorage, this government agency allows the public conditional access to the records in this custody.

While mail-based record requests are exclusive to the Juneau office, you can make in-person, fax, and email requests at both offices.

You may direct your inquiries to the addresses listed below or call the numbers whenever you need to find a death record:

1. 5441 Commercial Boulevard,
   Juneau, AK 99801,
   Phone: (907) 465-3391

1. 3901 Old Seward Highway
   Suite 101
   Anchorage, AK 99503
   (907) 269-0991

At either of the above-mentioned offices, you'll be asked to print and complete a death certificate request form. 

The completed form must be submitted to the bureau along with the requester's valid government-issued ID and service charge. 

This charge goes from $30 for a certified death certificate to $25 for each additional copy. 

Corrections to the information featured in the record are effected at the cost of $30, while a request for expedited processing of the sought-after record goes for $11. 

The Alaska State Archives

If the death record of interest to you is at least, 50 years old, you should be able to find it at the Alaska State Archives. For a nominal fee, you can get a copy of these death records.

An alternative option(to physical visitation) is to submit an access request form known as the Research Inquiry Form to the agency. 

You should fill the form with the necessary information specified and expect to have the record delivered to you in no time. 

Third-party Websites

A third-party website in this sense is an independently-managed platform that provides search services, usually for a fee. 

These websites have managed to collect tons of public records and can provide answers to the availability of public records, death records inclusive.

A typical third-party website featured name-based and location-based text fields in search portals. 

To find a death record using these query websites, you get to fill in the name of the decedent and that of the state or city where the death record was filed. 

What follows next is the display of a slew of matching search results from which you can pick out the correct one.