California Obituaries

Obituaries may provide information such as the age of the deceased, birth date and place, names of living relatives and their residences, maiden name, occupation, death date, cause of death, and place of burial. Deceased family members are frequently mentioned. Obituaries may also mention previous places of residence, immigration information, religion, and any social organizations or activities in which the deceased was involved.

Generally, the first step to obtaining an obituary is to find the death date of the person so that the obituary can be more easily found in a newspaper. Death dates may be obtained from the Statewide death index, or cemeteries in the local area where the person is believed to have died. Once a death date is known, the local library in the area may be contacted to learn whether or not they have newspapers for the time period needed, and if someone is willing to look for an obituary in that newspaper. If the newspapers are not held at the library, the local newspaper office may also be contacted to learn where older editions of the newspaper are kept. Some libraries and even newspaper publishers keep obituary files.

Online Resources

 * Online California Death Records and Indexes: A Genealogy Guide for Finding Obituaries, Cemetery Burials and Death Records by county.
 * Web: California, Berkeley Public Library Obituary Index, 1894-1979, ($)
 * at FamilySearch; index and images — How to Use this Collection
 * San Diego Union-Tribune (California) Obituaries, 1993-1994, ($)
 * California Obituaries


 * California Digital Newspaper Collection
 * Chronicling America California Digitized Newspapers
 * California Online Historical Newspapers
 * California Newspapers ($)
 * GenealogyBank.com California Newspaper Archives, 1846-2007 Index.
 * California Newspapers