A few hints about searching for obituaries. First, we've learned that not all obituaries that are printed in the newspapers contain the identical information as obituaries that appear at the funeral home's website, if one is available. Many newspaper obituaries are short and simple while the obituaries at the funeral home website are more detailed and oftentimes provide photographs of the deceased. We're not 100% sure why this is but we theorize that it may be cost related. After all, an obituary or a simple death notice, is really something of an advertisement that someone has passed on and they're not printed free of charge. Whereas, the funeral home's service packages may include an on-line obituary. After all, not all of the folks who visit websites are researchers, some are family and friends who need the details of the memorial service and, these days, they want to have that keepsake from the service which printing from the funeral home site can be provided at no or a lesser cost than through a newspaper purchase obituary.

We've posted a few of the older obituaries in the document attached. Here's the other thing about obituaries that you'll soon realize - obituaries, like the news "back in the day" were written with more - well - a more personal feel. In the areas where we generally search, such as Catawba, Burke, McDowell Counties and the like, communities were kept well informed about the comings and goings of its citizenry. Today, you would never see an article devoted to whether Mrs. Smith had a cold, or Mr. Jone's daughter came to visit, or whether or not, Old Blackie, Mr. Doe's cat of 15 years up and died of old age. But, in many newspapers from the 1800's through until at least the 1930's, 1940's in some areas, it wasn't at all odd to read about such things.