Working With Philadelphia Inquirer Obituaries: What Actually Happens When You Dig In
The Philadelphia Inquirer publishes obituaries daily, but the ones that matter most for genealogical research and local history are the ones that go beyond the standard template. I've spent years tracking down and reading through the Inquirer's obituary section, specifically the longer-form pieces that examine the full lives of people who shaped this city. Here's what I know about how they work and what to expect when you're using them. The Inquirer has a dedicated team of writers who handle the expanded obituaries. These are typically published on weekends and occasionally on weekdays for notable residents. The standard paid death notice is a different beast entirely — those are often just a paragraph of boilerplate. The actual narrative obits run between 500 and 1,200 words and are where you'll find the real biographical detail. I used to waste hours searching the online archive because I didn't understand how the Inquirer structures its obituary content. The paid notices and the written obituaries live in completely different sections of their website. The paid notices show up in the general search results. The narrative pieces require you to go to the obituaries section specifically and then filter by date range. I learned this after spending three weeks trying to locate a 2019 obituary for a civil rights activist who ended up buried under a different date because the print ran on a Saturday but the digital version was posted Wednesday.
Here's the thing most people don't realize: the Inquirer's obituary writers will sometimes write the piece from scratch for truly notable Philadelphians, and sometimes they'll take the family-submitted version and lightly edit it. There is no reliable way to tell which approach was used unless you compare the published piece to the draft the family submitted. I once tracked down a draft for a local jazz musician's obituary through a contact at the funeral home, and the differences were significant. The published version cut about forty percent of the biographical content, including the person's early immigration story, which was actually the most historically valuable part. The death notice submission process has its own complications. Families submit through the Inquirer's obituary desk, and there's a word limit and a pricing structure that changes depending on whether you want the piece in print, online, or both. A standard printed obituary with photo runs around two hundred to three hundred dollars. The expanded narrative version is more expensive and requires coordination with one of the staff writers. You can't just upgrade a paid notice into a feature obit after it's been placed — the editorial process is separate. I've found that the Inquirer archives go back to approximately 1995 in searchable digital format. Before that, you're dealing with microfilm or physical newspaper copies at the Free Library of Philadelphia's Central Branch on Market Street, or at the Pennsylvania Historical Society. The microfilm for the 1980s is particularly messy because the paper changed its layout and typeface multiple times during that decade, which makes keyword searches unreliable even when you think you've found the right year.
One counter-intuitive detail about these obituaries: the Inquirer sometimes publishes what they call "remembrances" or "memory pieces" on anniversary dates rather than at the time of death. I found this out when researching a schoolteacher who died in 2003 but whose most detailed biographical account appeared in 2013 as part of a special section honoring educators. These anniversary pieces are not filed under obituaries in any conventional way. They show up in the lifestyle or education sections, which means a simple search for her name in the obituary section would return nothing useful. Another thing that trips people up is the handling of names. The Inquirer does not standardize spelling across obituaries. If a family member misspells a place name or uses a nickname inconsistently in the submitted text, the published version preserves that inconsistency. I spent two days searching for a Philadelphian named "Ezzard" before realizing the obituary spelled it "Esazar" in one paragraph and "Ezzard" in another. The database indexes each occurrence separately, so a search for either spelling alone misses half the content. For researchers working with obituaries of civil rights figures, labor organizers, and other community leaders, the Inquirer's coverage is generally thorough but uneven. The paper has a track record of giving substantial obituary space to people who were significant within Philadelphia's Black community, but the quality depends heavily on which writer was assigned and how much time they had. I reviewed a cluster of obituaries from 2017 where three prominent community members died within the same week, and the coverage ranged from two dense columns to a single paragraph, with no publicly explained reason for the disparity.
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If you're trying to use these obituaries for academic or genealogical work, you should also know that the Inquirer does not publish a master index of obituaries. There is no alphabetical listing by surname. The only way to browse is chronologically, which means you need to know roughly when the person died. This limitation affects everyone doing research, not just casual readers. I recommend cross-referencing Inquirer obituaries with the Philadelphia Tribune's historical archive, which at least has a more consistent coverage of Black Philadelphians across decades. The digital archive subscription costs money and access is restricted to certain institutions. I've used my local library card to access it remotely, but not every branch has that privilege. The Free Library of Philadelphia does offer institutional access at select branches, which is useful if you're doing serious work and don't want to pay for a personal subscription. The cost is roughly eighty dollars per year if you go that route. When you do find the right obituary, the citations matter. The Inquirer uses bylines, and the publication date is not always the date the person died. It's the date the piece appeared in print. I've seen discrepancies of up to ten days between the death date and the publication date, which throws off any timeline you're building. Always record both dates and note which is which.
There's also a practical issue with photographs. The Inquirer usually includes at least one image with a narrative obituary, but the digital resolution on their website is low. If you need a high-resolution version for publication or research, you have to request it through the Inquirer's photo desk, and they will ask for a legitimate research purpose. Personal genealogy counts, but they've also turned down requests from people who seemed to be collecting photos without a clear project in mind. Be prepared to explain what you're doing. The most useful tip I can offer is this: when you're searching for someone who died recently, start with the weekend edition. The Inquirer tends to publish its longer, more complete obituaries on Saturdays. Weekday obituaries are more likely to be condensed versions, especially if the person died mid-week and the family hasn't had time to prepare detailed material. I've noticed this pattern consistently over the past several years. Also worth noting: the Inquirer occasionally republishes older obituaries in special commemorative sections. I found a 1998 obituary for a fire captain who had died during the line of duty, reprinted in a 2020 section about Philadelphia firefighters. The republished version included additional commentary from current department members that wasn't in the original. These republishings are not indexed separately from the original, so they're nearly impossible to find through a standard search. You have to know to look for them in the context of the commemorative issue.
If you hit a wall with the Inquirer's records, the next stop should be the Philadelphia City Archives on Race Street. They maintain death records that predate the Inquirer's digital archive, and the staff there is accustomed to helping researchers navigate the overlap between newspaper obituaries and official city records. The archive is open Tuesday through Friday, and you can request obituary clippings from their collection, though wait times vary depending on how far back you're going. Recent materials take a few days. Pre-1970 materials can take several weeks because they're stored off-site. The bottom line is that the Inquirer's obituary section is one of the most valuable resources for understanding Philadelphia's history, but it's not straightforward to use. It requires knowing where to look, understanding the difference between paid notices and editorial pieces, and being prepared to check multiple sources when one doesn't have what you need. The paper has made real strides in digitizing its archive, but the gaps and inconsistencies are still there, and you'll save yourself a lot of frustration if you go in knowing exactly where those weak spots are.
