izzie, I'm not sure if you are in Minnesota but you can use ancestry.com and lots of other resources for free at the Minnesota Historical society in St. Paul. Or perhaps you can contact a librarian there (at the website)to look your ancestor up.

Ancestry.com has some free services for genealogy with an a (I learned that the hard way).

Also, rootsweb.com can do a free search for death dates in the social security death index if the person had a social security number.

Also, if you do a Google search using the words free genealogy you'll find RootsWeb and others.

Born: 5 May 1927
Died: Apr 1976

Here is the info I found. If you would write me sandy_in_ia@ hotmail dot com I will give you the rest of it.

Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002
Name: Beth R. Koch
Birth Date: 5 May 1930
Death Date: 19 Apr 1976
Death County: Martin
Mother's Maiden Name: Bratton
State File Number: 009681
Certificate Number: 009681
Certificate Year: 1976
Record Number: 2609441

Social Security Death Index
Name: Beth Koch
SSN: 425-54-5192
Born: 5 May 1927
Died: Apr 1976
State (Year) SSN issued: Mississippi (Before 1951)

I would tend to agree with the birth year of 1927 since that's on the (free to the public) Social Security Death Index. You can write to the Social Security Administration for a copy of the Application she filled out to get a Social Security Number.

The April 19, 1976, date of death would be accurate, since that's on the Minnesota records.

Lindsey posted everything that I would have sent. Hope this answers some of your questions.

I hope I don't sound like an alarmist and I do understand the woman has passed away - but I'm not sure it's a good idea to post all that data online. - Do you think you should ask for this post to be removed?

I apologize if I'm out of line.

eamon2 -- The Social Security Death Index, showing the SSN of the deceased (which, I presume, is what concerns you), is available online for free to anyone who looks for it. Removing it from this particular site doesn't prevent anyone from finding it.

The Minnesota Historical Society has an online site, also free to the public, and it has this information:

KOCH, BETH R.
Date of Birth: 05 May 1930
Place of Birth: OUT OF STATE
Mother Maiden Name: BRATTON
certid# 1976-MN-009681
Date of Death: 19 Apr 1976
County of Death: MARTIN

Anyone who has a death certificate number can get a copy of the certificate. The certificate will have the SSN.

Wow, you guys are good! Info in a couple of hours and you are spot on.

I have a World Deluxe membership to Ancestry.com. I can access anything and everything they have.

Additionally, I am a contributor to the site (keying in records that will eventually be online), and I'm also an arbitrator for the Ancestry.com web site. Before new records are released online, they are keyed in by two different people. The two sets of keyed records are then given to an arbitrator, who can see the original digital imgage, and who then compares the data. If the two folks who keyed the stuff enter different information, it's the arbitrator who decides which is correct (or can enter completely new info if both keyers got it wrong). Also, once information is available online, if a member sees something that's wrong (or might be) they can suggest a correction. For example, let's say you're looking at a Census image that lists your ancestors. The enumerators (the folks who went door to door collecting the information) were notorious for misspelling names -- they weren't necessarily familiar with a lot of the foreign names and/or didn't understand the foreign accents, etc. Let's say you have an acestor named Celia, but on the Census page it's written (and transcribed) as Sialia. So, you click on the link to make a correction. Or, you see the name Amelia but it's been transcribed as Amella. When you look at the digital image you can tell that the dot over the "i" is sort of connected to the bottom part of the "i" so it's a simple transcription error. You click on the link to make a correction. The information that you enter is reviewed by an arbitrator, who decides whether or not the info you enter will be viewable by everyone who has access to the records.