Obituaries

One of the resources we tend over overlook when searching for information about our ancestors is obituaries.  They can be a treasure trove of information.  If you have any idea at all about where an ancestor died, try searching the local papers for that area for an obituary.  Most indexed newspapers have been scanned or digitized using OCR (optical character recognition) meaning you can do a name search of the newspapers archives to find someone.

Here is a list of some of the information you can find in an obituary or death notice:

1. Date of death, name of cemetery, date and place of the funeral and burial
2. Name, place, and year of birth

3. Names of children, where they lived, and their position in the family’s birth order
4. Names of the towns and how long they lived in each one
5. Age of spouse at death and how long ago that was
6. Details on the longevity of parents and grandparents
7. Count of descendants, by generation

8. Name of spouses (and maybe even past spouses)

9. Names of siblings and sibling's spouses

10. Occupation(s) of deceased

You just never know what you can learn - so I hope you will use this valuable resource in attempting to break down your brick walls!