In researching your family tree, it can be easy to fall into the trap of confining yourself only to official documents, such as birth, marriage, and death records. While these records are certainly important, you may be missing valuable information if you aren't checking other sources as well. One extremely useful resource that is sometimes overlooked by genealogists is the obituary. What exactly can you find in such a source? Here's a list of some of the possible genealogical facts that might be found in an obituary:

• Full name of the deceased
• Names of family members such as spouse, children, parents, siblings, etc.
• Which family members either preceded the individual in death or survived them (which might give you an indication of where/when to look for another ancestor's death)
• Where they lived
• Birth place
• Birth date
• Cause of death
• Name of funeral home or cemetery
• Occupation
• What church/congregation they attended
• Social organizations that they belonged to
• Significant life events
• and much more...

How likely are you to find an obituary for your ancestor? Well, death notices of some kind or other have been around for about as long as newspapers. However, the longer obituary containing the type of biographical sketch we're more interested in has been common since the late 1800's. With the rise of the digital age, it's becoming more popular for obituaries to be posted online. If you're searching for a relative who died sometime between 1998 and the current year, there's a good chance the obituary is available on the web. Even if your ancestor died before that time, you may still be able to use online tools to locate an obituary.

Googling for an Obituary
Google is a great place to start when searching for online resources. It can be hard to know where to begin, though. If you type in just a name, you're likely to end up with thousands of unrelated results. Here are some things to keep in mind when you're googling for obituaries.

• Start with the basics. If you get too many results, you can always add more information to your search, but it's best to start simply. For your first search, enter just your ancestor's name and the word "survived" or "preceded." (Obituaries generally include a notice about family members who either survive the deceased or preceded them in death, so this is a good way to limit your results to obituary notices.)
• If your ancestor had a common name, this might still return way too many results. Try adding the first name of an immediate family member (such as a spouse, child, sibling, or parent). It's best to use the family member who had the most unique name. If you're looking for a John Smith, adding his wife's name probably won't help much if she was a Mary. Also, don't expect the name of an ex-spouse to be included in the obituary -- generally, it won't be.
• If you know where an ancestor died, you can also add the name of city or state to narrow your results.
• You can also always limit results by putting your ancestor's name in quotes, which tells the search engine to look only for that exact phrase. For example, entering a search for "John Edward Smith" will look for that exact name, rather returning results that just happen to include the names John, Edward, and Smith somewhere on the same page. However, you have to be careful when you do this because you never know exactly how your ancestor's name will be listed in the obituary. It might be "John Edward Smith," but it could also be "John E. Smith," "Smith, John Edward," or just plain "John Smith." If you're going to use quotes, you'll probably have to try the name several different ways. It's best to start without quotes in most cases.

Online Databases
Some websites have placed large databases of obituaries online, which you can search with a paid subscription. Here are a few that we have found useful:

• Ancestry.com : A collection of recent obituaries compiled from hundreds of newspapers. The collection is added to on a daily basis.
• NewspaperARCHIVE.com: The largest historical newspaper database online, containing tens of millions of newspaper pages from 1759 to present.
• Legacy.com: Search millions of obituaries from more than 750 newspapers in the U.S. and around the world.

There are many free databases of obituaries and obituary indexes as well. Below we've listed two examples:

• Obituaries.com: Powered by Legacy.com, this site has links to fewer newspapers, but the service is free.
• Obituary Daily Times at RootsWeb: Click on Obituary Daily Times from Rootsweb's homepage to search this daily index of published obituaries. Usually about 2500 entries are added each day. (This is only an index, so it's useful to find where the obituary was published, but it won't give you the actual obituary itself.)

Also, many newspapers now have online archives where you can search recent obituaries. Again, you're more likely to find an obituary online for an ancestor who died between 1998 and the present. So, try searching the websites of any local newspapers in the area where your ancestor passed away.

A Few Things to Keep in Mind
Just a few cautions about searching for obituaries. First, while an obituary can be a veritable treasure trove of information, that doesn't mean it always will be. Sometimes, what you'll find instead of a full obituary is a death or funeral notice, which will include just the basic facts such as name of the deceased, death date, funeral details, and maybe the names of immediate family members. However, finding a death notice doesn't mean there isn't an obituary as well. Sometimes a death notice is published immediately after the death and then an obituary follows a few days later. So, if you find a death notice, keep looking.

The information in an obituary is generally written by a family member, friend, or someone at the funeral home. They may have gotten a few of their facts mixed up, so it may not be one hundred percent accurate. As always, it's best to verify important facts with other sources when possible.

More than one obituary may have been published about your ancestor. Sometimes there is more than one local newspaper or sometimes another obituary may have been published in an area where your ancestor formerly lived. An obituary may also have appeared in a newspaper published by a religious or ethnic group to which your ancestor belonged.

Where To Go Next
So, you've googled your ancestor and checked all the online databases you can find. What next? Copies of newspapers can often be found at local libraries, archives, or historical societies. Checking out the websites of these organizations may help you find copies on microfilm that you can search. If you know where and when your ancestor died, you can search local newspapers around the time of death. Usually obituaries are published within two or three days after the death, but sometimes it takes a little longer. It's usually a good idea to search from the date of death to about ten days after the date. For newspapers that are published weekly, try searching in up to three issues after the death.

Obituaries at MyTrees.com
MyTrees.com has joined together with FreeFamilyPages, to bring you a full-text search of the Books and Records database. You can search this database for a limited time at MyTrees.com. It contains extractions of newspaper obituaries from areas including Fulton, Indiana; Nevada, California; Houghton, Michigan; and more. The Books and Records database is part of our subscription services, so Subscribe Now to access the records.