How obituary monitoring works: add a name once.

No more checking websites every day. Here is what happens after an admin approves your free account, from the first check to the moment you get an alert. See free access details or our guide to obituary monitoring.

Start Monitoring
Example watch Margaret A. Collins Dayton, Ohio
  1. Day 1 Monitoring starts We begin checking every source.
  2. Day 14 Still watching No notice yet. That is normal.
  3. Day 32 Notice found A funeral home posts an obituary.
  4. Minutes later You get an email With a link to read the notice.

Step by step

Four steps, all done for you.

You only do the first step. Everything after that runs on its own, every single day.

  1. 01

    You add a name

    Enter the person’s first and last name. Add a city, state or age range if you know it, so we can tell apart people with the same name.

    • Takes about a minute
    • Add as many details as you know
  2. 02

    We check every day

    Each day we look through funeral home websites, local newspapers and memorial sites for new obituaries.

    • All 50 states
    • No need to remember anything
  3. 03

    We match carefully

    We compare each new notice with your details, including nicknames and spelling differences, so real matches are not missed.

    • Nicknames and middle names
    • Location and age checked too
  4. 04

    You get an alert

    When a likely match appears, we email you right away with a link, so you can read the notice and confirm it is the right person.

    • Instant email
    • Link to the full notice

What we check

Every place an obituary can appear.

There is no single list of deaths in the U.S. So we check all the places where obituaries are usually published.

  • Funeral home websites

    Most obituaries are first posted by the funeral home handling the service, often on their own website.

  • Local newspapers

    Many families also publish a notice in the local paper, in print and on the paper’s website.

  • Memorial and tribute sites

    Online memorial pages collect notices from many places and are often where people share memories.

Smart matching

Names are not always written the same way.

Obituaries often use nicknames, middle names or maiden names. We take these into account so the right notice is found.

  • WilliamBill, Will, Billy
  • KatherineKathy, Kate, Katie
  • RobertBob, Rob, Bobby
  • MargaretMaggie, Peggy, Meg

FAQs

Questions about how it works.

Short answers to what people ask most before they start monitoring a name.

Every day. Each name on your list is checked daily against funeral home websites, newspapers and memorial sites.

A first and last name is enough to start. Adding a city, state or age range helps us tell apart people with the same name.

We keep watching for as long as the name is on your list, so a notice published weeks or months later is still found.

You get an email with a link to the notice. You can read it, confirm it is the right person, and keep or remove the name from your list.

Yes. A simple account lets us save your list and send alerts to your email. It takes about a minute to set up.

Yes. You can pause, edit or remove any name at any time from your account.