Finding an obituary in the United States is simple when you know where to look. You may be exploring family history. You may be seeking details about an acquaintance. You may be searching for information about a passing.
In each of these situations, many online tools can assist you in locating obituaries and death notices.
The key to success is to search using as much information as possible. This means the person's name, the city, or town where the person lived, the person's age, and the date of death.
The straightforward method is to type the person's full name into Google, Bing, or another search engine.
Try searches such as:
"John Michael Smith" obituary
"John Michael Smith" death notice
"John Michael Smith" passed away
"John Michael Smith" funeral
"John Michael Smith" memorial
Put the name in quotation marks - that tightens up the search. If it's a common name, add more to it: city, state, job, age, roughly when they died.
For example:
"John Michael Smith" obituary, Chicago
Or:
"John Michael Smith" Obituary, Illinois, 2023
These additional details can significantly reduce unrelated search results.
Legacy.com usually the first stop for finding a US obituary. It scoops up listings from newspapers, funeral homes, and a number of other places, so you're not hunting through ten different sites.
Search by name, then narrow it down with whatever else you know. Know the state they lived in? Add it. Got a date of death? Throw that in too - it cuts the search way down, especially for common names.
Many U.S. newspapers publish obituaries and death notices for people who lived in their areas. If you know where the person lived, find the newspaper that serves that city or county. Then go to its website. Search there.
For example, a search such as:
"John Michael Smith" obituary Dallas may help you locate an obituary published by a Dallas-area newspaper.
You can also use Google's site: search operator when you know the newspaper's website:
"John Michael Smith" obituary site.com
Some newspaper archives may require a subscription to access older articles.
Funeral homes are another important source of obituary information in the United States.
When a funeral home handles arrangements, it may publish an obituary or memorial page containing information such as:
Full name
Date of birth
Date of death
Family members
Education and career
Funeral or memorial service details
Burial information
Guestbook or condolences
Try searching:
"John Michael Smith" “funeral home”
You can also search for the person's name together with the city where they lived.
Find a Grave can be useful when an obituary is difficult to locate. The website contains memorial records for people buried in cemeteries throughout the United States and other countries.
Searches can generally be narrowed using a person's name, birth and death years, cemetery, and other information. A memorial may provide the person's birth and death dates, burial location, family information, photographs, and links or references to additional information.
Keep in mind that a cemetery memorial is not necessarily an official obituary, so information should be verified when accuracy is important.
For older obituaries, genealogy websites can be particularly useful.
Resources such as FamilySearch and Ancestry contain historical records and newspaper-related collections that may help locate information about someone who died many years ago.
These resources can be especially helpful when researching:
Parents and grandparents
Older relatives
Historical figures
Previous generations of a family
People who died before widespread internet use
Names get misspelled, details go missing - so it's worth trying a few different spellings or versions of their name.
Not everyone gets a proper obituary. Sometimes a paper just runs a short death notice - name, age, when they died, funeral info. Nothing more than that.
Therefore, search for terms such as:
Death notice
Death announcement
Memorial
Funeral notice
Funeral announcement
In memoriam
Passed away
For example:
"John Michael Smith" "death notice"
This can produce results that a search for “obituary” may miss.
Location is one of the most useful pieces of information when searching for an obituary. If you know the person's city and state, include both in your search.
For example:
"Mary Johnson" obituary, Phoenix, Arizona
If you don't know the city but know the state, start with the state:
"Mary Johnson" obituary, Florida
You can then add other information to narrow down the results.
If the person has a common name, searching with a relative's name can help you land on the right one. For example:
"Robert Johnson" obituary “Susan Johnson”
Try the spouse, a kid, a parent, sibling - whoever you know. This trick really pays off when there are a bunch of people out there with the same name.
Look for the Person's Age and Occupation
Adding an approximate age or occupation can further narrow the search.
For example:
"Robert Johnson" obituary "New York" "78"
Or:
"Robert Johnson" obituary engineer California
If you know the company where the person worked, you can also include it in your search.
Finding an obituary with the right name does not necessarily mean you have found the correct person.
Before relying on the information, compare several details, including:
Full name
Age or date of birth
Date of death
City or state
Names of relatives
Occupation
Funeral home
Cemetery or burial location
The more details that match, the more confidence you can have that the obituary belongs to the person you are researching.
Not every person who dies in the United States has a publicly available obituary. If your initial search doesn't produce results, try expanding your search.
Search for the person's:
Full name and nickname
Maiden name or previous surname
City and state
Previous cities of residence
Spouse's name
Parents' names
Approximate death year
Funeral home
Cemetery
Employer or profession
You can also search local newspaper archives and public library databases, particularly for older deaths.
The best way to go about it is to start broad and narrow things down.
Step 1: Search the full name plus "obituary."
Step 2: Add the city and state.
Step 3: Add roughly what year they died.
Step 4: Try "death notice," "funeral," and "memorial" too.
Step 5: Check Legacy.com, local newspaper sites, funeral homes, and cemetery databases.
Step 6: Confirm it's the right person using relatives, age, location, and other details.
Finding someone's obituary in the US almost never happens with one search. Start with the full name, then throw in whatever else you know - location, age, when they died, relatives, and what they did for work.
Recent death? Obituary databases, local papers, and funeral home sites are your best shot. Died decades ago? Skip those and go straight to genealogy sites, old newspaper archives, and cemetery records instead.
And if there's no real obituary out there, don't give up - a death notice, funeral announcement, memorial page, or cemetery record often has enough to confirm whom you're looking for.
