Read recent and archived obituaries and memorial notices from The Star Beacon. (2024)

FAQs

How do I find a local obituary? ›

Many funeral homes publish obituaries on their websites. These can usually be located with a Google search on the person's name. Local genealogical and historical societies, public libraries, and some newspaper publishers maintain clipping files of obituaries.

A death notice is a brief, factual statement that announces someone's death to the public. An obituary also includes facts surrounding a person's death, but also includes biographical information, stories, and anecdotes to help honor that person's memory.

Read The Paper or Watch The Local News

If you receive a physical newspaper, review the obituaries section to see who recently passed. Searching for someone who died more than 30 days ago? Turn to sites like Google News Archives, US News Archives, or International News Archives.

MyObits offers obituary creation and sharing, as well as announcements for funerals or memorials and lets you order flowers to send your condolences from the app.

Obituary Example: No Funeral or Memorial. [Full name] sadly passed away on [date of death] at their home in [place of passing]. They always spread joy and happiness wherever they went. As per [first name]'s request, no funeral or memorial service will be held.

Obituaries should never be written in the first person as they're not a personal tribute. As stated above, avoid including any personal addresses or phone numbers. Also, the cause of death is not necessary, as careers and education are not necessary details to include as well.

The family might not have a service, so they felt no need for an obituary, as obituaries are often used to provide information on the funeral. The family may have disagreements about what to include in the obituary.

Locating an obituary in a newspaper typically requires searching the paper of record (a newspaper that published public notices) for several days after the date of death.

How do I find out the year of someone's death? ›

Funeral home records vary in format and content, but they can all be valuable for determining someone's death date. Check genealogical and historical societies; state, county, and local libraries; and municipal archives for possible holdings.

Two state-level California Death Indexes can be found at Ancestry.com (a database anyone can access from any library branch and Central Library) or FamilySearch.org (a free internet database). California, Death Index, 1905-1939 provides the digitized index page, plus its transcription.

Legacy.com. Search the world's largest obituary database.

New York Public Library subscribes to many databases that can help researchers locate obituaries and death notices. The most useful are our newspaper databases. Oftentimes obituaries can be located by entering a person's name and week of death into the newspapers databases.