United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States

What is in This Collection?
This collection is an index to obituaries from thousands of newspapers throughout the United States beginning with the year 1980. This collection is created in partnership with GenealogyBank.

Image Visibility
Whenever possible, FamilySearch makes images available for all users. However, rights to view images on our website are granted by the record custodians.

These images can be viewed online by members of the supporting organization(s), at a Family History Center near you, or the Family History Library.

For additional information about image restrictions, please see the Restrictions for Viewing Images in FamilySearch Historical Record Collections page.

What Can These Records Tell Me?
The records usually contain:
 * Name of the deceased
 * The age of deceased.
 * Birth date and place
 * Death date and place
 * Names of parents, spouse or other relatives
 * Name of newspaper, date and place of publication
 * Mortuary or undertaker

How Do I Search This Collection?
Before searching this collection, it is helpful to know:
 * The name of deceased
 * Approximate death date of the deceased
 * The place of death

View the Images
View images in this collection by visiting the :
 * 1) Select  State of Publication
 * 2) Select  Publication Title
 * 3) Select  Year to view the images.

How Do I Analyze the Results?
Compare each result from your search with what you know to determine if there is a match. This may require viewing multiple records or images. Keep track of your research in a research log.

Over 23 million records in this collection were transcribed by computer. There may be errors with names or relationships. Once you select a person a message appears at the top of the details page that begins with "This record was indexed by a computer; there may be errors". The link reading "the form on this page" opens the "Errors?" link at the lower left corner of the page. Please help us fix these records by reporting errors using the form that appears in the "Errors?" link. Options will appear allowing for the description of the problem. Reported errors will be reviewed and revised as necessary.

The wiki article United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries Collection Errors lists specific information about types of errors in this collection.

I Found the Person I Was Looking For, What Now?

 * Use the information found in the record to locate the death record
 * Use the age or estimated birth date to determine an approximate birth date to find other church and vital records such as birth, baptism, and marriage records
 * Use the information found in the record to find land, probate and immigration records
 * Use the information found in the record to find additional family members in censuses
 * Repeat this process with additional family members found, to find more generations of the family

I Can’t Find the Person I’m Looking For, What Now?

 * Indexes and transcriptions may not include all the data found in the original records. You could get a copy of the original record from the GenealogyBank
 * If your ancestor does not have a common name, collect entries for every person who has the same surname. This list can help you find possible relatives
 * If you cannot locate your ancestor in the locality in which you believe they lived, then try searching records of a nearby town or county
 * Try different spellings of your ancestor’s name
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names. Try searching for these names as well

Known Issues With This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem.

Citing This Collection
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used.


 * Collection Citation:

"United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014." Database and images. FamilySearch. https://FamilySearch.org : 28 December 2017. From "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - 2014)." Images and database. GenealogyBank.com. http://www.genealogybank.com : 2017. Citing various newspapers. Born-digital text.

Top of Page