
One of the main goals for genealogists is to find obituaries. Obituaries are a gold mine of information. They provide death dates and locations, funeral and cemetery information, and more importantly – information about the relatives of the deceased’s family and extended family. This family name information is often not found anywhere else.
Over the past few decades, thanks to volunteers, librarians, and archivists, a great number of 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 are recording the date in your genealogy database. Make sure that it is the death date.
(Updated May 2023)
General U.S.
- Currentobituary.com index, 2001-2014
- Obituary Daily Times Index, 1995-2016
- U.S., Selected Jewish Obituaries, 1948-2002
- United Methodist Church Annual Conference Journal Memoirs and Obituary Index
- United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014
- United States, Obituaries, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1899-2012
Vermont Obituaries
- Addison County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Addison County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Bennington County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Caledonia County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Caledonia County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Chelsea, Boardway & Cilley Funeral Home, 2013- (Transcriptions)
- Chittenden County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Chittenden County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Essex County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Essex County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Franklin County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Grand Isle County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Hartford Obituaries and Death Notices Indexes
- Lamoille County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Lamoille County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Middlebury, Sanderson Funeral Service, 2006-
- Miscellaneous Vermont Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Newport, Curtis-Britch Funeral Home, 2010- (Transcriptions)
- Northeast Kingdom Vermont Death Notices and Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Norwich University Newspaper Index, 1860-1992
- Orange County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Orange County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Orleans County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Orleans County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Randolph, Day Funeral Home, Obituaries 2007- (Transcriptions)
- Rutland County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Rutland County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Rutland Herald & Burlington Free Press Index (search word = “obituary”
- Rutland Herald Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Rutland, Clifford Funeral Home, 2016- (Transcriptions)
- University of Vermont Alumni Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Vermont GenealogyBuff Obituary Files
- Vermont Obituaries – Funerals and Death Notices 2012-
- Vermont Obituaries – Obit City
- Vermont Obituaries Archive (Index is free)
- Vermont Obituary Records, Early 19th Century (Transcriptions)
- Vermont USGenWeb Obituary Project
- Washington County Deaths, Funerals, Births & Fires (Transcriptions)
- Washington County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Washington County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Windham County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Windham County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Windsor County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Windsor County, Obituaries (Transcriptions)
- Woodstock, Cabot Funeral Home, 2010- (Transcriptions)
If you wish to search this state’s historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Vermont Online Historical Newspapers Summary.
For all Free Vermont Links, click on the category of interest:
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