Obituaries: Preserving and Displaying Them
by Cliff Lamere August 2015
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When obituaries are copied from the internet to be used in a genealogy program or put on an internet webpage, they often get abbreviated or otherwise altered by the person doing the work. Although not recognized as such by the person making the changes, those changes cause a decline in the value of the obituary. Over the years, I have handled a large number of obituaries and gradually have developed a set of standards which I follow. You may find some of them useful.
The examples that I discuss below focus on Albany County, NY, but the general ideas stated apply to obituaries from anywhere in the country.
Sources of free online obituaries for New York State
1) Legacy - It has agreements with a large number of newspapers across the United States to maintain their obituaries. This includes the Times Union in Albany, NY. Click on the Legacy link, then click on "More Options" in the search box. Choose a time period if you know when the person died, or choose "All Records".
2) NYS Historic Newspapers - Contains newspapers from 33 counties in the state, but the selection of newspapers may be very limited for some counties. If a newspaper sends their obituaries to Legacy or sells them on their on website, you will not find them here. On this site, you can click on a county on the NY map in order to see what newspapers and years are available. Or, you can click on Search, then on "All newspapers". The County and City drop-down lists will allow you to see if the city/village that interests you is available. For example, for Albany County the Altamont Enterprise is available under various names from 1884 to the present.
3) Fulton History newspaper site - As of August 2015, over 30 million newspaper pages are available. Most are from New York, but there are also newspaper issues from other states and Canada. The newspaper pages come from microfilm images that are converted into searchable text by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. Dusty or scratched microfilms will lead to OCR mistakes that may make it impossible to find an obituary even if is present on the site.
4) Spotlight - Newspaper for Delmar, Albany Co., NY
Important to know:
a) Even though a person may have lived and died in a certain county, the person's obituary may have been published in another county as well.
b) Search for a female using her married name, but also search using the maiden name in case you do not know if she married before her death, or if she might have returned to her maiden name later in life.
Summary of general rules that I follow. Below the summary, each suggestion is discussed in considerable detail.
1. Record the source of the obituary, either the name and date of the newspaper in which the obituary appears, or the webpage address.
2. Try not to alter the text of the obituary in any way. Do not add anything or delete anything.
3. Do not delete the dateline if the obituary begins with one.
4. Do not delete paragraphs at the end which give a) funeral and burial information, and b) suggested contributions which can be made.
DISCUSSION
1. Record the source of the obituary, either the name and date of the newspaper in which the obituary appears, or the webpage address.
Viewers will want to know where the obituary was published. They may want to look at the original to be sure that a typed transcription did not contain errors or omissions. I usually put this on the line following the obituary, but in an italicized font so that it stands out from the obituary.
2. Try not to alter the text of the obituary in any way.
An obituary is a bit of genealogical history. If it should contain one or more mistakes, do not make corrections within the obituary itself. Following the dateline which gives a location, do not add the state even if you think it will be helpful to viewers. Instead, on the line following the source at the end of the obituary, you can add a note that is a correction.
Personally, I usually use square brackets [ ] for my own comments. It is possible that parentheses ( ) may be used by an author of a webpage or an obituary, but they would almost never use square brackets [ ]. Therefore, I prefer to use square brackets in a situation where it would otherwise be difficult to tell who wrote it, or if I want my comment to look different from what precedes or follows it.
3. Do not delete the dateline if the obituary begins with one.
The dateline in a newspaper consists of the date and place of an article's publication. In obituaries, the dateline gives only the location, and that is usually the place from which the deceased is best known. If a person died in a hospital (a short stay) or nursing home (a long stay), the dateline will usually be the person's previous permanent residence. If an Albany, NY newspaper has a Miami, FL dateline, and the person lived part of the year in each state, the person paying for the obituary probably submitted the same obituary to newspapers in two states. The dateline in this example suggests that the death occurred in Florida, even if burial will be in New York.
An obituary is primarily meant to inform people of the passing of their friend or acquaintance. If the deceased has a common name like John Smith, the dateline will help identify the deceased as the right or wrong person by that name.
In a local newspaper, the state will rarely accompany the dateline. Do not add the state, as helpful as that would be to some readers. Instead, add a comment below the line stating the name and date of the publication, or the website in which the obituary appears.
4. Do not delete paragraphs at the end which give a) funeral and burial information, and b) suggested contributions which can be made.
Even though this information is given in obituaries, it is too often omitted. The logic of omitting it is probably that the funeral has already been conducted, and contributions are no longer being made. However, information that is important to some viewers is contained there. For example, the religion of the person may be suggested, and the cemetery may be mentioned. Contributions are often made to an organization related to a certain health issue. This can suggest the disease from which the person suffered and/or died.
Final Notes:
Perhaps to save space, Legacy obituaries appear as one long paragraph. I separate the text into paragraphs that are logical to me. An example of what I do with a Legacy obituary follows:
Burton, Carol Ann QUEENSBURY Carol Ann Burton, 68, of West Mountain Road, passed in peace on Saturday, May 9, 2015. Born September 20, 1946, in Albany, she was the daughter of Frederick and Sarah (Smith) Albright. Those left to cherish her memory are her beloved husband, Michael Burton; three sons, Scott Burton, Daniel "Danny" (Nicolle "Nicky") Burton, and Randall "Randy" Burton, and three grandchildren, Kyle, Alainea, and Jenna Burton. Calling hours will take place Wednesday, May 13, from 4 to 6 p.m., at Baker Funeral Home, 11 Lafayette St., Queensbury, NY 12804. A funeral service will follow at 6 p.m. at the funeral home, with the Rev. Flossie Gage Bates officiating. Condolences and floral bouquets may be sent directly to the funeral home or through bakerfuneralhome.com
QUEENSBURY -- Carol Ann Burton, 68, of West Mountain Road, passed in peace on Saturday, May 9, 2015.
Born September 20, 1946, in Albany, she was the daughter of Frederick and Sarah (Smith) Albright.
Those left to cherish her memory are her beloved husband, Michael Burton; three sons, Scott Burton, Daniel "Danny" (Nicolle "Nicky") Burton, and Randall "Randy" Burton, and three grandchildren, Kyle, Alainea, and Jenna Burton.
Calling hours will take place Wednesday, May 13, from 4 to 6 p.m., at Baker Funeral Home, 11 Lafayette St., Queensbury, NY 12804. A funeral service will follow at 6 p.m. at the funeral home, with the Rev. Flossie Gage Bates officiating. Condolences and floral bouquets may be sent directly to the funeral home or through bakerfuneralhome.com
Explanation:
Unlike most other newspapers, the obituaries of the Times Union of Albany, NY give the person's name twice, once before the dateline, and once after. I delete the one before the dateline. I personally prefer to separate the dateline from the obituary with two hyphens. As stated above, I put the source information on the line following the obituary.
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18, 2015