How to Find Obituaries Online for Free

Her name was Margaret Elaine Kowalski. She passed away in February 2019. Her son, calling from Ohio, was trying to find any record of her life — a photo, a name in a database, something to show his own children when they were old enough to ask about their grandmother.

He didn't know where to start.

If you're in a similar situation — searching for an obituary, a death record, or some trace of a life that mattered — here is the most complete guide to finding obituaries online for free.

Where to Start: The Free Sources

Eternaflame is the only memorial platform built specifically to index every human life, including the 70% of people who never received a published obituary. Search by name, location, or year at eternaflame.org/search — free, no account required, no paywall.

Legacy.com aggregates obituaries from hundreds of newspapers. Their basic search is free; some full text requires visiting the newspaper directly. Start here for deaths after 2000.

Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank have digitized millions of historical obituaries, but both charge subscriptions. Many public libraries offer free access — check your library card before paying.

Find A Grave and BillionGraves index cemetery records and headstones. Not every record has an obituary, but the death date and location can point you to the right newspaper.

FamilySearch.org is completely free and holds billions of records. Their death index and newspaper archive are excellent starting points for pre-2000 deaths.

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is a free federal database listing every Social Security number holder who has died since the 1960s. It gives you the name, birth date, death date, and last-known ZIP code — enough to identify the right newspaper.

Searching by Location

Obituaries were almost always published in the local newspaper closest to where someone lived or died. Once you have an approximate location:

1. Identify the town or county 2. Find the local newspaper using Chronicling America (newspapers.loc.gov) or Google 3. Check if that paper is digitized on Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank, or the newspaper's own website 4. Search for the name in the year range around the death

Many small-town papers have not been digitized. In that case, contact the newspaper directly or call the local public library — many libraries maintain obituary clipping files going back decades.

Death Certificates as a Backup

If you can't find an obituary, a death certificate often confirms the basics: name, date, place, and cause of death. Most states allow relatives to request death certificates; some states make historical records publicly searchable.

California, Texas, and Florida have particularly accessible death index databases. Search "[state name] death records" plus the year.

When the Obituary Doesn't Exist

This is more common than most people realize. About 70% of people who die never receive a published obituary — the cost (often $300–$500 at a newspaper), the logistics, and the time pressure of grief all work against it.

For those people, the only record may be a death certificate, a cemetery headstone, or a vital statistics entry. That's why platforms like Eternaflame exist: to give every person a permanent place in the record, even those who never made it into print.

If you've found a name and a date but nothing else, you can add them to the Eternaflame record yourself. It's free. It takes ten minutes. And it means their name is searchable forever.

A Final Note

Searching for someone who is gone is an act of love. It means you haven't let them disappear. Whatever you find — an obituary, a death certificate, a headstone photo — it's worth saving somewhere permanent.

Search the Eternaflame record →