Search Obituary Web Sites
With the many obituary sites available, it's helpful to select major sites to search. (If you prefer to search many sites at once, see the
Search All the Web section.) The
RootsWeb Message Boards and the
USGenWeb Obituary Project
are good places to check, and there are other links on the
Other Obituary Links
page.
The
RootsWeb Message Board Localities
page has links to world regions, and on each page you make a more specific geographical selection until you reach the pages with messages for the desired county or region. To avoid having to work through most of these pages, go to the desired
state or
country
page on our site and use the direct link (below the volunteer listings) to the
corresponding location on the RootsWeb Message Boards.
Then, to view the obituary messages, select Obituary from the View Message Type menu. The Search link allows you to search for a name on all boards or just the board you're on.
The
USGenWeb Obituary Project
is organized by state. While some areas have more obituaries a
than others, the total number is growing.
Search All the Web
Because there are so many web sites with obituaries, the quickest way to check for many of them at once is to use a search engine.
Google
usually finds the largest number of genealogy-related sites, including those with obituaries. (If you prefer to check one site at a time, see the
Search Obituary Web Sites section.)
For example, to find an obituary for Leslie Smithton who died in 1970, here are different possible keyword patterns to try in the search box in the search engine. You will probably have to try several to get the link to the right obituary. The quotes in the first few examples help make the search more precise, but if that doesn't work, the names without quotes may give more results.