The Ancestor Hunt regularly adds and updates new collection links, as well as searches for and fixes broken links.
(This page's most recent update is September 2024)
______________________________________
Over the past few decades, thanks to volunteers, librarians, and archivists, many indexes to obituary information and transcriptions of obituaries from newspapers have been provided for free online. These searchable indexes provide the location in old newspapers where the obituary can be found. Sometimes the scanned newspaper clipping is included.
And remember you can always find online historical newspapers to search for obituaries for free on this website (links at Newspaper Links).
Here are a few articles that may be helpful:
- How to Find Historical Obituaries
- What is the Future of Obituaries?
- What is the Difference Between an Obituary, a Death Notice, an Obituary Index, and a Death Index?
- 32 Reasons Why Searching for Obituaries is Like Finding Gold
- 9 Ways to Effectively Find Obituaries in Online Newspapers
Each entry below will be appended with one of the five types of obituaries: Transcriptions, Clippings, Index, Abstracts, or Online.
Online entries present an obituary on a website that publishes online obituaries, generally, a phenomenon that occurs after the year 2000.
Indexes are just that, an index that at a minimum includes the deceased’s name and the name and date of the newspaper that the obituary appears in. Some indexes also include the date of death, so be careful if you record the date in your genealogy database. Make sure that it is the death date.
There are a total of 10,050 online database links that I have found for the U.S. in this update, which included new collections and fixing links that were changed or broken.
Here are alternative means to newspaper searching to find obituary information, listed by the link to each state’s list of free links. Please be aware that if you find a desired obituary in an index, the holder of the actual obituary (e.g., library or genealogical society) may charge a small fee to send you a copy of the obituary itself.
- Alabama Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Alaska Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Arizona Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Arkansas Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- California Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Colorado Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Connecticut Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Delaware Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- District of Columbia Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Florida Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Georgia Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Hawaii Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Idaho Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Illinois Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Indiana Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Iowa Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Kansas Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Kentucky Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Louisiana Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Maine Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Maryland Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Massachusetts Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Michigan Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Minnesota Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Mississippi Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Missouri Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Montana Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Nebraska Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Nevada Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- New Hampshire Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- New Jersey Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- New Mexico Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- New York Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- North Carolina Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- North Dakota Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Ohio Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Oklahoma Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Oregon Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Pennsylvania Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Rhode Island Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- South Carolina Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- South Dakota Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Tennessee Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Texas Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Utah Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Vermont Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Virginia Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Washington Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- West Virginia Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Wisconsin Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
- Wyoming Obituaries and Obituary Index Links
Good Luck and Happy Hunting!