Finding Obituaries Online
FREE WEBSITES
The current issue of Internet Genealogy (April/May 2010) has an article listing ways of accessing online
obituaries. These are the free sites listed by the author, Leland K. Meitzler.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
The National Digital Newspaper Project
Launched March 2007
Sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress
Money awarded to state projects.
Dates covered: 1836 to 1922
States covered: Arizona, California, Florica, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New
York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
website: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
location of libraries with microfilm of specific newspapers: http://chroniclingamerican.loc.gov
Obituaries.com -- powered by Legacy.com (free site)
www.obituaries.com/Obits.asp
Obituary Central (free site)
www.obitcentral.com
Obituary Daily Times -- a Roots Web Project (free site)
www.rootsweb.com/~obituary
New York Times Obituaries Online (claims to be a free site)
www.nytimes.com/pages/obituaries/
Nationwide Obituary Portals Cyndi's List -- Obituaries (free site)
www.cyndislist.com/obits.htm
Ancestor Hunt -- Obituary Search Engines and Indexes at Libraries, Universities, and Societies (free)
www.ancestorhunt.com/obituary_search.htm
Obituary Links Page -- A State-by-State Directory (free site)
www.obitlinkspage.com
Newspaper Obituaries on the Web--from The Genealogy Register (free site)
www.newspaperobituaries.net
Obituaries 101 -- Portal to Current Online Newspaper Obituary Pages (free site)
www.big101.com/OBITUARIES101.htm
SUBSCRIPTION DATABASES
According to Leland Meitzler, ProQuest ended up with Ancestry's Bell and Howell obituary database. At
some point, ProQuest decided not to renew their agreement with Ancestry. They decided to post the data
under Proquest. Proquest's obituary database only includes New York Times from 1851, Los Angeles
Times from 1881, Chicago Tribune from 1849, Boston Globe from 1872 to 1923, Washington Post from
1877, Atlanta Constitution from 1868 to 1922, and Chicago Defender from 1909 to 1975. Ancestry does
have an obituary database.
Ancestry -- Library Edition
To get to the obituary database using Newton's Ancestry subscription takes several steps. This was not
part of the ariticle. Trial and error on my part.
On the Ancestry Home page, click on the "Search" tab (to the right of the "Home" tab).
In the "Browse Records" frame to the right, click "More…" under "Birth, Marriage & Death."
To the left, under the heading "Search Individual Titles in this Category:"
Scroll down to "United States Obituary Collection - Updated" and search.
If you have an individual subscription, go to the website listed below and put in your user name and
password.
United States Obituary Collection at Ancestry.com
www.ancestry.com/search/obit/?us&dbid-7545
I tried cutting and pasting the above address after I pulled up Ancestry under our Free Online Databases.
It still wanted a user name and password.
NewspaperARCHIVE.com (old obituaries)
Subscription site
This is a newspaper archive. Obituaries do not have their own category. This may have the largest
number of obituaries simply because of the very large number of newspapers covered. Finding them
requires a certain amount of ingenuity since you are searching entire newspapers. Your amount of "white
noise" hits will grow exponentially.
Genealogy Bank -- America's Obituaries 1977 to Current
27 million obituaries.
Subscription site
www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/obituaries.html
Genealogy Bank -- Historical Newspapers 1690 - 1977
Has over 3,400 newspapers--with obituaries.
www.genealogybank.com
ObitsArchive.com -- from Newbank
Subscription or pay-per-view
www.obitsarchive.com
Same content as GenealogyBank.com, but this site allows pay-per-view
Legacy.com -- Recent Obituaries
Pay-per-view site/free searches
http://legacy.com/Obituaries.asp
vea/ NewtonFreeLibrary/revised 24 May 2010