Using obituaries for genealogy research

Why obituaries are so useful to researchers

For family historians, a good obituary can be one of the richest records there is. Census returns and certificates tell you facts. An obituary often ties those facts together, showing who belonged to which family and where they lived.

A single notice may list the person’s parents, spouse, children, brothers and sisters, and even grandchildren, often with the towns where each one lived at the time. That can open up branches of a family tree that would otherwise take months to find.

Obituaries also capture details that rarely appear in official records, such as a nickname, a church, a club, a trade or a story from someone’s early life. These small clues can help you tell two people with the same name apart.

What to look for in each notice

Read every obituary slowly, and more than once. Clues are often tucked into a single phrase. It helps to copy out each fact into your notes with the source and date.

• Full name, maiden name and any nicknames
• Dates and places of birth, marriage and death
• Names of parents, and whether they died earlier
• Surviving family and the towns they lived in
• Relatives who died earlier, often listed as preceded in death
• Church, funeral home and cemetery
• Military service, employers, schools and clubs

The list of survivors is especially valuable. Married daughters are often listed with their husbands’ names, which gives you new surnames to follow. Our guide on what to include in an obituary shows the usual structure, which makes it easier to know where each detail tends to appear.

Finding older obituaries

For deaths before the internet era, the main source is the local newspaper. Many historic papers have been scanned and made searchable, some for free through public and university library projects, and some through paid subscription sites.

Searches of old scanned pages are not perfect. The text is read by software, and faded print can turn names into nonsense. Try spelling variations, search by surname alone, or browse the pages for the days after a known date of death.

If a paper has not been scanned, the local public library or county historical society may keep it on microfilm. Many libraries will look up an obituary for you if you give them a name and an approximate date. For more places to try, see how to find old obituaries.

Recent obituaries and living relatives

For deaths in recent years, most notices are published online by funeral homes, local papers and memorial sites. These are useful for bringing a family tree up to date and for finding living cousins who may hold photos, letters and family Bibles.

Online notices do not always stay up forever. When a funeral home changes website providers, older pages can disappear. Save a copy or a screenshot of any notice you rely on, and write down the web address and the date you found it.

If you are waiting for news about an older relative or a distant family line, an alert can save repeat searching. A monitoring service such as The Passings checks funeral home websites, newspapers and memorial sites daily and emails you when a matching notice appears. Professional researchers can follow up to 10 names per approved account; see our page for professionals.

Check every fact against other records

Obituaries are usually written by grieving family members, often in a hurry. Dates can be off by a year, names can be misspelled, and family stories can grow in the telling. Treat an obituary as a strong lead, not the final word.

Where you can, confirm key facts with other sources. Death certificates, birth and marriage records, census returns, cemetery records and military files all help. When sources disagree, record both versions and note which one seems more reliable and why.

It also helps to look for more than one notice. A family may have placed an obituary in the hometown paper and another where the person later lived, and each may include different details.

Respect and privacy

Genealogy often brings you into contact with people who are still grieving. If you reach out to a relative you found in a recent obituary, be patient and polite, explain who you are and how you are connected, and accept it if they would rather not talk.

Be careful about what you publish in online family trees. Details about living people, such as full names, towns and birth dates, can be misused. Many researchers keep living people private and share only the details of those who have died.