The following was written by Thomas Jay Kemp, NewsBank’s
Director of Genealogy Products: Discover Unique, long-forgotten
Information about Your Ancestors. GenealogyBank recently added
over 32 million records and now has more than 855 million
records online. 70 million of these records are obituaries
published in newspapers and documents from the late 1600s to
today. Along with birth announcements and marriage notices,
obituaries are an important genealogy resource found in
newspapers that can help you with your family history research.
Obituaries do far more than tell you about the deceased—they
provide a springboard to push you off into other searches,
perhaps to unexpected places. Once you’ve found them, however,
what’s the best way to glean all the information you possibly
can from an obituary? Look for Facts and Clues You will want to
closely read every word of an obituary for the facts and clues
that it provides for documenting your family history. This
article will examine an actual obituary in detail,