Of all the resources available to the genealogy researcher, one of the most useful is the obituary page. Most other resources, such as census records, may not contain enough information to positively identify an individual and/or their relationship to others in your database. Earlier census records, for example, contain only the head of household. Many birth and death certificates don’t contain personal information about an individual such as occupations or memberships in organizations. The obituary usually contains all this information and more.

Obituaries first became commonplace in newspapers in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Most of the individuals listed were prominent members of the community. Finding an obit for an obscure member of your family can be difficult, if not impossible. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that newspapers began listing "common" individuals on their obituary pages. Listings at first were sketchy and included the basics, such as date and location of deaths. Newspapers did not follow a common practice, so some were more descriptive than others. Many times the obituary would be listed several days or weeks after the individual had died. When scanning old newspapers for obits, you may have to look for several weeks afterward (or months in the case of monthly publications) to find the entry you are looking for. Most state archives and libraries have older newspapers on microfilm for the researchers. Online resources, such as Newspapers.com of NewspaperArchive.com also are useful, but cost to use.

What is the best way to find the obituary you are researching? There are many options available. If you know the date of death, it can be quite easy. If you are unsure, there are also options available as well but it will take a little more effort on your part. The easiest method I have found is the shotgun method. When I first began researching my family tree, I visited the state archives and was overwhelmed with the amount of data available. Looking for individual death certificates was very time consuming, until I discovered the death indexes. When the Mormon church (FamilySearch.com) began microfilming individual records for the counties and states, they compiled indexes of all the individuals by surname. These indexes are alphabetical and will list all the persons having died, for instance, in any particular year. For common names such as Smith, these indexes can be quite large, but for obscure names, such as Higginbotham, there may be no more than a dozen or so deaths in any given year. What I began doing is making copies of the index pages with the surname I was researching. These indexes typically list the name, date and county where the individual death certificates were filed. Once you get these listings, you can begin narrowing your search.

Most states have only 4 or 5 major newspapers while there may be numerous publications for individual cities, counties or regions. If you don’t find the obit in the state publications you may have to review the county and regional papers. After compiling the listing of deaths from the indexes, use this as a checklist for finding obits. Check first in the major papers and then go to the regional ones when the obit you are looking for is not listed. One of the advantages of the regional obits is that they will typically contain more personal information about the individual. Remember, especially with more prominent individuals, that the obit may not be on the normal obituary page. The listing may be on the front page as well or, in the case of accidental deaths, may be listed as a filler story anywhere in the paper. Many papers now have a common location for obits, but that may not be where you need to look. You may need to scan the entire issue to find the entry. Thankfully, though, this is the exception rather than the rule.

One of the advantages of using an obituary for documentation is that many times they will include a mini-biography of the individual’s life. Some will list birth dates and places as well as parents. Others will include their occupation and memberships in various organizations as well as educational background. Most, of course, list the surviving members of the family and their present residences. This can be invaluable if the family is spread out across the country. Some obits also list members of the family who preceded the individual in death. Also spouses are usually listed with maiden names included as well as stepchildren. It is not unusual to have 4 generations listed as well as a family history based on the prominence of the individual in the community. Another bonus that I run across is the family history of spouses if they came from a prominent family.

After collecting more than thousands obituaries in the past 20+ years, I can’t relay the invaluable nature of these documents. I have been able to add and correct many family lines and members using this method. The next most important step is to share these obits with others by using the resources available on the internet at genealogical sites such as RootsWeb, GenConnect and Legacy.com bulletin boards.

William Morris Higginbotham

Misterhigg@aol.com