New York 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

 * 1980-2014 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * Online New York Death Records &amp; Indexes, by county
 * New York Obituaries, by county
 * Archives.com Obituaries for New York ($)
 * Newspaper Obituary collection for New York: starts about 2003 to present ($)
 * ProQuest Obituaries for New York($)
 * Ancestry.com United States Obituary Collection for New York ($)
 * Genealogy Buff New York
 * New York Online Historical Newspapers
 * Newspaper Archive ($)
 * Online New York Newspapers
 * New York Newspapers Online
 * Historic American Newspapers 1836-1931 in New York
 * World Vital Records Newspaper Archive Collection in New York ($)
 * America Historical Newspapers
 * America’s Newspapers
 * Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online
 * Brooklyn Genealogy
 * Buffalo History Museum Obituary Index 1811-1986
 * Genealogy Bank
 * Hudson River Valley Heritage (HRVH) Historical Newspapers
 * Nassau County Libraries Historic Newspaper Collections
 * New York Newspapers by county
 * Northern New York Historical Newspapers
 * NYS Historical Newspapers
 * Old Fulton NY Post Cards
 * Suffolk Historic Newspapers