WHAT YOU WILL (AND WON'T) FIND ON THESE PAGES

These pages are designed to teach you *how* to conduct a comprehensive search for an obituary in Southern California. It gives you places to look and provides lists of newspapers so you can prepare your search using the Internet. 

We do not have obituaries themselves, nor do we have any obituary indexes. We do have links to several online and offline obituary index sites, as well as many places where you can look to see if an obituary has been posted for a relative.

RESEARCH PROCESS TUTORIAL

As volunteers who perform obit lookups, we've struggled and, through trial and error, found solutions to some of these challenges. We designed this website to share the knowledge that we've gained. The process is presented, step by step, on the following pages.

ONLINE LISTS OF NEWSPAPERS

In addition to outlining our research methods, we also wanted to share the information sources we've compiled. These include lists of newspaper collections that can be accessed by the public. The list includes information about circulation areas, dates, and format (hard copy or microform).

ONLINE LISTINGS OF LIBRARIES AND OTHER REPOSITORIES

We have compiled a list of libraries, genealogical societies, historical societies, and other repositories throughout Southern California. When the project is completed, you will find contact information on some 600 organizations complete with contact information, notations on whether they do lookups, other genealogical materials in their holdings and links to each repository's website.  This is a work in progress, so check back often to see what's new.

TIPS EVERYONE CAN USE

While our focus is definitely Southern Californian, we've included tips and hints that everyone can use, regardless of location.  Check out the strike-out page for some new ideas for obituary sources.

OBITUARY LOOKUPS

Unfortunately, while we're working on this webpage project, time constraints prevent us from doing lookups for others. We cannot accept lookup requests at this time. We hope that we will be able to add lookup request as a feature of this website by September 2003. In the meantime, we have provided links to volunteer sources if you're unable to obtain an obituary yourself.

HOW TO USE THIS SITE

As you explore these pages, you'll see icons at the top of each page. To move from one section to another, just place your cursor over the icon and click … you're on your way! Of course, we have links at the bottom of each page to help you navigate.