You may or may not be aware, but mortuaries here in the Southwest can charge a family as much as $600 or more to publish an obituary in a local newspaper. You can get a discount through the local print newspaper, but not much. The difference is the mortuary markup. So along comes an obituary service in Utah that has an online obituary publishing website that charges a flat $30 per obituary. I talked to the one of the principals, who I had known from Arizona, at #RootsTech 2014.
The website is called ObitsUtah.com and I understand that both the mortuaries and the local newspapers try everything they can think of to stop people from using this service. They also have another website called ObitsAncestry.com that was created to assist FamilySearch in the collection of obituaries. This is a free website and is described as follows:
ObitsAncestry.com was created to assist FamilySearch in the collection of obituaries, both past and present. All obituaries submitted to ObitsAncestry.com will be indexed and linked by familysearch.org for family history and genealogical purposes.This particular service is supported by a request for donations.
ObitsAncestry.com is special. It's a place where individuals and families can add obituaries of their deceased family members and loved ones free of charge. Obituaries are available online for viewing at anytime.
There is no paid advertising on our website. ObitsAncestry.com is intended to be a quiet, reverent place where people can view and read obituaries without distraction, unencumbered by banner ads and other types of pesky advertising.
Features include:
- Obituaries are available on-demand in the searchable archives indefinitely.
- Obituaries can include a life story and a photo or slideshow with up to 4 pictures.
- A newspaper style printout is available for a keepsake.
- A memory book is included for family and friends to share online memories.
- Obituaries are indexed and linked by familysearch.org for family history and genealogical purposes
http://obitsancestry.com/
http://obitsutah.com/
This raises a couple of questions for me that I hope you can answer. Is ObitsAncestry.com for obituaries that have never been published? Do newspapers hold the copyright for the obituaries that appear on their pages? I wrote the obituaries for both of my grandparents. Do I hold the copyright for them or does the newspaper that pubished them??
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. This looks like another blog post to me. Watch for something soon.
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