Obituaries Can Be The Key to Unlocking Birthplace & Dates

Finding the right information to help unlock ancestral past can be challenging to say the least. When a key is needed, obituaries for known family members might just pick the lock right open.

Obituaries are incredibly helpful for assisting family history hunters in uncovering birthplaces and dates. Even in their earliest forms, obituaries generally at least included clues about a person's origin. When these clues or outright statements in black and white are followed to their fullest extent, generations of family members can be uncovered.

Using obituaries and following the tips they offer about birthplace and birth date for a family member will likely lead to a host of other records and names. The trick is to follow each lead and see where it goes.

To fully explore what an obituary can uncover, the trick is to follow the cues to the city or town in question. Whether you make a trip in person or just send a records request, the information that might be gleaned can be phenomenal. Once in contact with the right authorities in the birth city of an ancestor, look for the following records:

Birth certificates. If they are available, these documents are fantastic for uncovering at least one other layer in the puzzle. They will almost always give the names of the birth parents. The mother's maiden name should also be listed. These two bits of information can readily lead to more.
Birth announcements. Some older newspapers have incredibly good records on microfilm. If a birth city and date has been found thanks to clues in an obituary, consider requesting information from the local newspaper's morgue. Although announcements won't necessarily offer as much information as birth certificates, they can be very useful.
Living history. Depending on how recent an obituary is, it is possible if the clues found lead to a city of origin for the deceased family member, descendants or friends of the deceased might still be living there. If so, the clue could pay off in a big way if these people can be located and interviewed via phone, e-mail or face-to-face contact.
Census records. If the records lead to an American city, it's possible information from the obituary can give clues on what to look for in Census records. When these are found for family members, the doors can be opened right up for some serious research.

An obituary might be one of the most important public records that can be found in relation to an ancestor. It can serve as a starting point for tracing back into the past to uncover information about more than just the subject of the piece. Following the clues back as far as possible might just rip the lock right off one's own past.

Searching for obituaries online? Beware of scammers. Read my report first.