where to start

[Billyblue]

The Ryerson Index is information from Death & Funeral notices and obituaries in over 300 Australian newspapers and has entries from as recently as last Friday.

Put in the surname and the earliest year you know they were still alive.
If it's a popular surname then I suggest you search for each person by individual search,
e.g. SMITH David   and SMITH  Ann; but if it's an uncommon surname I'd only put the surname in.
Up to you.  You might be lucky - or unlucky, depending on your point of view 

If you find any of them, you might be able to get a snip of the actual notice.  Finding a Published Notice (see LHS menu, front screen) tells you where you can look for a notice.

Good luck!
Dawn M

[sweatinbullets]

I dont do social media as such my self eg, fb and im pretty sure my brother wouldn't be the sort of person would be on there any way, thanks for your reply Josie

thanks billyblue im guessing if my parent/s are dead they would of been in NI as they were only suppose to be visiting/living in au for short periods of time although my brother could well be dead in which case he would be in there as he would be about 56 now,

[Billyblue]

Well, have a look!
Ryerson Index is NOT social media.  It's a specific website - www.ryersonindex.org - for DEATH & funeral notices & obits in Australian newspapers.

Dawn M

[majm]

May I please support  Billyblue's post.  The Ryerson Index is definitely NOT social media.  It is an ongoing project of dedicated volunteers who read the classified columns of newspapers with the purpose of typing up to the database the summary info of death or funeral notices in specific Australian newspapers.  The Ryerson index allows you to enter the surname of your person of interest,  and you can add  given name .. and restrict it to particular range of years.  In return it gives you the publication date and newspaper and other clues .... Definitely not social media,  all the people indexed are of course already deceased.

JM

[josey]

I think the reference to social media was in response to me suggesting sweatinbullets looked for his brother there. 

I am sure OP will look on the Ryerson index. Hope you will come back to is if you find some news there. ...

[Billyblue]

Thanks for the Ryerson 'plug' JM     

You can now search by Location without surname, too.
And by first name only - which of course is not much use for Mary or John but if you have an unusual name it helps.  My Mum's first name was Balbena and there are only a couple of them among the over 7 million entries   

Dawn M