Close and a Cigar

Factual Questions
1

Sometimes a Cigar is a Cigar.

Sorry, I’ve spent the whole day looking at book copyrights between 1930 and the early 40’s.

100% weren’t renewed according to my research.

Now here’s the real boggle:

They’re Public Domain in the US.

And I want to distribute in Canada.

Which means I have to find out when the bastard who wrote this drivel died.

2

So, the question is, which authors publishing between 1930 and the early '40s are still living and on what date did the rest of them die?

Tall order.

3

The genealogist rings in.

Find this in book form or online at a local library:
Biography and Genealogy Master Index
The Social Security Death Index is an online database file that contains about 80% of all Social Security number holders in the U.S. who died 1962-present:

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

The Library of Congress catalog does a fair job of updating its author information in their online catalog:

http://catalog.loc.gov/