Free websites that list newspapers with obituaries and death notices, and searchable databases of newspaper obituaries, memorial sites, guest books, funeral home and military veteran memorials, grave markers and death indexes.
You can also search obituaries through online library database collections, news websites, genealogical societies and state archives.
Aggregated records in searchable database:
Legacy – Newspaper obituaries, memorial sites, guest books, obituary alerts, Social Security Death Index. Site claims: “800 newspapers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.”
GenealogyBank – Searchable database of newspaper obituaries from NewsBank, 1977-2012 (Newspaper list and date range)
NewsLibrary.com – Searchable database of 4203 publications. Search text of articles. Obituary summaries are more extensive than results returned from ObitsArchive.
ObitsArchive.com – Same as GenealogyBank but with a different search interface. United States, only. (Source list.)
Internment.net – Cemetery transcriptions and burial records – search by name or region. (List of cemeteries included.)
Obituary Daily Times – Searchable index of some newspaper obituary abstractions
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia newspapers searchable database – A surname search is free but complete results require a fee. Check with area libraries, which may have free access.
Funeral Cards – a limited database from funeral homes
Directories:
Ancestor Hunt – List by state of links to obituary search engines and indexes of historical newspaper obituaries
Directory of newspapers sorted by title, some with searchable databases
Obituary, head stone and grave marker transcriptions – Sorted by title of source and type of record. This is organized in a somewhat arbitrary way. For example, Buffalo, New York death notices appear under the letter “D,” for “Death Notices.” You can get around this with a Google search: “buffalo” site:http://www.cyndislist.com/obituaries/
Cemeteries & Funeral Homes – browse by state and cemetery name
Directory of Newspaper Obituaries and Obituary Resources by State
Obituary Depot – Newspaper Directory and obituary surname search
Funeral Homes:
Dignity Memorial – Includes Legacy.com results. (Site claim: Network of more than 1,600 funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers)
Time For Memory – A small number of obituaries submitted by funeral directors
State records in searchable database:
Illinois
Minnesota
Dodge County
Duluth News-Tribune, 1960 to the present
Mankato Free Press and its predecessor newspapers, 1869-1879; 1888-1954; 1970-1986.
Pennington
Sherburne County
St Cloud Times, 1928-2013
Vital records indexed:
Familysearch.org – Searchable database of local, national and international death indexes
Death Records – search by geographical area. Includes links to sites with searchable name index.
