I'm dealing with a little bit of a tricky situation but basically the property I'm trying to buy is still titled to a deceased person.  It was never properly transferred to her only child, who lived there for years then willed it to his close friend before he passed away.  The friend is who I'm purchasing the property from, and I've already consulted a few lawyers about this, and it looks like all I'm missing is the death certificate of the mother to connect the chain of title and purchase the property.  The problem is that she has an extremely common name and I also have limited information on her.  Age/year of death, place of death, middle name, other relatives.  All I have is the information for her son (will, birth certificate, etc) and obviously the address where she owned a house and lived for a period.

I've tried calling some private investigators, using a few (free) online people search websites, I've even gone to the Library of Virginia to search their databases for obituaries and such, all with no luck.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'm absolutely willing to pay for this, I'm just hesitant to subscribe to one of the paid online sites just because I have doubts that they will be able to help and most of them seem unreliable.  However if anyone has had success with any specific site I'd be glad to give it a shot.  Also any skip tracers or PIs out there that would want to contract this job I'd be happy to hire.  Thanks in advance for all the help!