Read recent and archived obituaries and memorial notices from The Eagle Tribune. (2024)

FAQs

How do I find a local obituary? ›

Many funeral homes publish obituaries on their websites. These can usually be located with a Google search on the person's name. Local genealogical and historical societies, public libraries, and some newspaper publishers maintain clipping files of obituaries.

Obituaries and death notices can be published by alumni organizations, religious or community institutions, and professional organizations, or online.

A death notice is a brief, factual statement that announces someone's death to the public. An obituary also includes facts surrounding a person's death, but also includes biographical information, stories, and anecdotes to help honor that person's memory.

The Web site hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths. Legacy.com hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S., by circulation.

As funeral homes across America post obituaries to their respective funeral home website, The Obituary App organizes them all into particular cities. Now, a user can look at all the obituaries posted by multiple funeral homes in one place.

All you need to navigate an online obituary finder is the full name of the deceased (although other criteria, like birth date and location, can help narrow down your search.) If the person you're searching for passed away in your same city, it can also be helpful to visit your local mortuary's website.

Publishing an obituary in the newspaper is expensive because of the limited space papers have. Newspapers value every inch of each page, so they must charge to use that limited space for an obituary.

Obituaries are not required by law , so the deceased's family might have chosen to forego publishing one. Publishing an obituary can be expensive , and the funds may be unavailable. The deceased has few family members or friends , so there might have, unfortunately, been no need for an obituary.

Generally at the direction of the probate court and with the assistance of the estate's attorney, the executor is required to publish notice of the death in appropriate newspapers to run for a specified length of time. This notice is typically filed in the local newspaper.

Obituary Example: No Funeral or Memorial. [Full name] sadly passed away on [date of death] at their home in [place of passing]. They always spread joy and happiness wherever they went. As per [first name]'s request, no funeral or memorial service will be held.

Who normally reads the obituary at a funeral? ›

This reading may be performed by a family member, a close friend, or a designated individual. The purpose of the obituary reading is to share important details about the deceased person's life, allowing everyone present to reflect on their accomplishments, relationships, and contributions.

The obituary is typically written by the family (edited, then submitted, by the Funeral Director), so the cause of death is or isn't included by the direction of the family and not the newspaper.

North Dakota newspaper The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead ran what is certainly one of the shortest obituaries ever published. Accompanying a photograph and name of local resident Douglas Legler, the obit, which ran Wednesday, had just two simple words: “Doug died.”

Local newspapers, obituary pages, and social media can help you determine whether someone recently died. States and the U.S. government have online death records (sometimes called death indexes) for deaths within the past 50 years or so. To find out if you're in someone's will, you may want to visit a probate court.

An obituary should contain at least basic information about the person's life milestones - birth name, date, and place, parents' names including the mother's maiden name, other names used by the deceased, spouses or partners names, date and place of death, memorial service details, and burial place.

Two state-level California Death Indexes can be found at Ancestry.com (a database anyone can access from any library branch and Central Library) or FamilySearch.org (a free internet database).

However, many of the county libraries in South Carolina have special indexes for obituaries from local newspapers and may have the newspapers on microfilm. See the LibGuide at statelibrary.sc.libguides.com/sc-obituary-resources for information on how libraries help users with information in this field.

New York Public Library subscribes to many databases that can help researchers locate obituaries and death notices. The most useful are our newspaper databases. Oftentimes obituaries can be located by entering a person's name and week of death into the newspapers databases.