Minnesota Obituaries

Obituaries provide information such as the age of the deceased; birth date and place, including foreign town and country of birth; parents; names and residences of living children; relatives and other family members; maiden name; and occupation. Deceased family members are also frequently mentioned. The obituary may indicate previous places of residence, immigration information, religious affiliation, 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 a variety of records: Vital Records

Obituary Resources on Line

 * The Internet Archive may occasionally have published books which include a collection of obituaries. To search this archive, type Minnesota Obituaries in the search box.

Additional Obituary Resources
United States Obituaries and United States Newspapers list sources for finding obituaries and the newspapers that publish them.

Various collections of obituaries for Minnesota have been compiled. For example:


 * Southwest State University (Minnesota). Southwest Minnesota Historical Center. Obituary File Index, ca. 1873–1953. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1990. (Family History Library .) There is no list of the newspapers that were used to compile this index. Index gives name of deceased, death date and place, and other information.
 * Southwest State University (Minnesota). Southwest Minnesota Historical Center. Obituary Files, ca. 1985-1990. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1990. (Family History Library .) The cards are in alphabetical order and have the original obituaries pasted on them. Obituaries come from miscellaneous newspapers of southwestern Minnesota.
 * For a statewide obituary database search see the Dalby Database.

To find obituaries and obituary indexes, check the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:

MINNESOTA – OBITUARIES

MINNESOTA, [COUNTY] – OBITUARIES

MINNESOTA, [COUNTY], [TOWN] – OBITUARIES

= Web Sites: =


 * Genealogy Buff -  Obituary Library - Minnesota Genealogy Data
 * US Gen Web Archives Obituary Project