Unk Hiram's
Beginning Genealogy Lessons
Lesson #10
Lesson 10: Obituaries
So you have walked the cemeteries and you are wondering what else you can find to document your ancestors' passing. Your next step is to try to find the obituary for your ancestor. If you are real lucky, the newspaper for the area you are researching will still be in business; or if your luck is more like mine, you will need to check at the local library to see if they have the old newspapers on microfilm. You will want to start checking the files for the day of the death and a few days after it. Frequently the obit will not appear for a few days, so don't panic if you don't find it on the day they died. Althought an obit is at best a secondary source, you should make a copy of the ones you find to "document" your source of information. Remember, one of the keys to good genealogy is to always document your sources.
Let's take a look at the type of information that you can find in a obituary.
- Name.
Now keep in mind that this will not always be the full legal name, so consider it a secondary source for the name.
- The date, time and place where the person was buried.
Again a secondary source because you can't be sure who turned in the information.
- Date and place of birth, and date and place of death.
A secondary source for above-stated reasons
- Surviving relatives.
This is the goldmine you are searching for. Although it can't be considered a primary source because of the above-stated reasons, it will list all the "known" surviving relatives and their relationship to the deceased.
- Dead relatives.
Often the obituary will include the names of the deceased spouses or children that passed before them.
You can use all of these clues to point you in the right direction for your future research.
Q & A Section:
- An obituary is considered a primary source for what information?
- Date of death
- Date of birth
- Town in Maine that the deceased lived in
- Nothing, an obituary is a secondary source
- An obituary "may" list the following item
- Date of birth and death
- Place of birth
- Surviving relatives
- All of the above
- You make a copy of the obituary because
- You want to make sure your ancestor files are thick.
- It makes the librarian think you are not wasting their time
- To document your source
- Because it is a primary source
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