Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Friday, January 17, 2014

Obituary Indexing records now available to index

In response to a recent blog post I received the following comment:
Great news! The indexing pilot was successful. We started indexing our first two official obituary projects today, which are the first of many, many more to come. They are: 
  • US, Pennsylvania—Obituaries, 1977–2010
  • US—Obituaries of Germans from Russia, 1988–2013 
Come download a batch today and see what you think. 
Happy indexing!
FamilySearch Indexing
I guess I caught the tail end of the Pilot Project. You might note that the obituary files start in the 1970s and 1980s. This is common for obituary indexes. It has only been recently that any general effort has been made to gather the information from these death announcements. Hundreds of years of obituaries and other death notices are sprinkled throughout the huge number of newspapers. However, the nation's newspapers are also being digitized at an ever increasing rate. If the death of an ancestor falls outside of the time for which the obituary indexes are available, then the search should be made in the local, county and state newspapers of the time.

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