How to find obituaries from a funeral home

Why start with the funeral home

When someone dies, the family usually works with a funeral home to plan the service. Most funeral homes help write the obituary and post it on their own website, often within a few days. The same notice may later go to a newspaper, but the funeral home page frequently comes first.

A funeral home page also tends to carry details a newspaper notice leaves out, such as the full service schedule, livestream links, a guest book and a place to send flowers or donations. For families, it is often the most complete record of the service.

Funeral homes also update their pages. If the time or place of a service changes, the funeral home page is usually where the change appears first. If you plan to attend, it is the best page to check again the day before.

Work out which funeral home to check

If you do not know which funeral home handled the service, make a short list.

• Funeral homes in the town where the person lived last.
• Funeral homes in neighboring towns, since families do not always pick the closest one.
• Funeral homes in the person’s hometown, where many families hold the burial.
• A funeral home connected to the family’s church or community, or one the family has used before.

Find the obituaries page

On a funeral home website, the obituaries page can go by several names. Look in the main menu for Obituaries, Tributes, Recent Services, Memorials or Current Services. On a phone, these links are often hidden behind the menu button.

Many funeral homes use website services built for the funeral trade. These sites often share a similar layout, with a grid of photos and names, a search box and a page for each person. Once you have used one, the others become easier to read.

If you cannot find the link, try a search engine with site: and the funeral home’s web address, followed by the last name.

Search and browse the listings

Search boxes on funeral home sites are often basic. They may only match the exact name as typed, so a nickname or a missing middle initial can hide the notice.

• Type the last name only and read the list.
• If nothing shows, scroll back through the listings by date instead.
• Check whether the site has a filter for year or month.
• Look at both current and past services if the site splits them.

Some funeral homes post a short notice first, with only the name and service time, and add the full obituary later. If you find a short notice, check back in a few days.

If the page is gone

Funeral home pages do not always stay online. A funeral home may change its website provider, merge with another firm or close, and older pages can disappear along the way.

• Check whether the funeral home has a new website, or whether a firm that bought it now hosts its records.
• Search the person’s name on memorial websites, which sometimes copy funeral home notices.
• Try a web archive service, which may hold a saved copy of the old page.
• Call the funeral home. Many keep records of past services and can tell you where a notice was published.

Our guide on how long obituaries stay online has tips on saving a copy before a page is removed.

Calling a funeral home

A phone call is often the fastest way to confirm whether a funeral home is handling a service. Staff can usually tell you the service date and time and where the obituary is posted.

Be kind and brief. Say who you are and why you are asking. Funeral homes protect the privacy of the families they serve, so they may not share personal details beyond what the family has made public.

It helps to have the full name ready, along with the town where the person lived and a rough age. If the funeral home did not handle the service, staff may know which one did, especially in a smaller town where the funeral homes know each other well.

If you are asking about a service from many years ago, give a rough year. Older records may be kept on paper or in storage, so it can take some time for staff to look.

Watching several funeral homes at once

Checking one funeral home site is quick. Checking ten of them every few days for weeks is not. If you are waiting for a notice and are not sure which funeral home will handle it, this can take a lot of time.

An obituary monitoring service can check funeral home websites, along with newspapers and memorial sites, each day and email you when a matching name appears. See how obituary monitoring works for more on what gets checked.