Getting Started with Local Obituary Documentation
Rgj Obituaries Honoring Legacies Documenting History In Our Community serves as the primary record-keeping platform for death notices in the Richmond area. When you first log in, you'll notice the interface hasn't been updated in years. The submission portal works on older HTML standards, so use Chrome or Firefox rather than Edge if you want things to load without hanging. The process begins by gathering the standard information: full legal name, age, residence, surviving family members, and service details. You'll also need a recent photo if you want it included. The system allows high-resolution uploads now, which is a relief compared to the pixelated images from a few years ago. Most people struggle with the character limits on certain fields. The biography section caps at 500 characters, and I've seen families lose meaningful content because they didn't plan accordingly. Keep a draft in a text editor first, then paste it in.
Rgj Obituaries Honoring Legacies Documenting History In Our Community Process
Once your draft is ready, you submit through the online portal or by phone. Online submission typically processes within 24 hours during business days. Phone submissions go through a different queue and can take up to 48 hours. I learned this the hard way when a caller had to reschedule a service announcement because the phone desk missed their callback window. Always confirm your submission ID and save the confirmation email. The system sometimes generates duplicate entries during peak periods around holidays, and those duplicates get merged manually by staff who are already stretched thin. A detail that trips people up regularly involves the date formatting. The system expects MM/DD/YYYY but displays prompts in a confusing way. Enter dates carefully. Wrong dates show up in print and the correction process requires a separate form and a $25 fee that most people don't expect.
What Most People Miss About the Process
The biggest oversight is not reviewing the proof before it goes to print. RGJ sends a PDF proof to the email address provided, but the default delay before publication is 48 hours. If you don't check that proof, errors stay fixed in the archive. I had a case where a middle initial was missing from a veteran's obituary, and the family had to file an amendment request weeks later because they were traveling. Never assume the proof went to your spam folder without checking. Another common mistake involves the survivor listing order. The newspaper has a preferred hierarchy: spouse first, then children, grandchildren, parents, siblings. Deviating from this order doesn't cause rejection, but it flags the entry for manual review, which adds a day to processing. If you have a non-traditional family structure, just note it clearly and don't worry about the convention. The editors are generally fine with it as long as it's unambiguous. The payment methods accepted are more limited than they appear on the homepage. The site shows credit card, check, and bank transfer options, but the bank transfer route only works during weekday business hours. After hours, you're looking at card or check. Submitting payment late means your obituary bumps to the next available printing cycle. The weekend editions fill up quickly, so Friday submissions for Saturday publication are risky. Thursday is the safest day if you need weekend coverage.
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Working Around System Limitations
The online editor doesn't handle special characters well. Greek letters, accented names, and certain punctuation marks either render as boxes or get stripped entirely. I keep a list of the problematic characters and substitute them manually before uploading. For example, using "e" instead of "é" is acceptable for obituaries, though some families insist on the correct character. That's a personal call, but know the system won't support it reliably. If your obituary exceeds the standard length, there's an overage charge of roughly $12 per additional line beyond the included 15 lines. The line count calculator on the submission page is accurate enough, but it doesn't account for photo placement, which can shift line breaks unexpectedly. Budget for two extra lines even if your text seems short. Better to pay $24 upfront than to get an awkward cutoff mid-sentence in print. There's no built-in archive search that works well for families trying to find past obituaries for genealogical research. The database exists, but the search interface is slow and often returns irrelevant results. I recommend using the library's microfilm copies for anything older than five years. The digital archive only goes back about a decade reliably, and even then, some entries from the early 2010s are missing due to a server migration that wasn't fully documented.
When to Contact Staff Directly
The FAQ page covers routine questions, but it doesn't address several edge cases. If someone in your family served in the military and you want the veteran notation included, the standard submission form doesn't have a checkbox for it. You need to flag this in the notes section and mention it explicitly. Same situation applies for fraternal organization memberships, union affiliations, or civic honors that fall outside the preset categories. The obituary desk phone number is listed as (804) 649-6600, but wait times vary. Early morning between 8 and 9 AM on weekdays tends to be the shortest. Afternoons are packed with people trying to amend or cancel submissions. If you call during a busy period, you'll likely get transferred twice and still won't reach anyone who can help. Leaving a detailed voicemail with your submission ID usually gets a response within a few hours. For time-sensitive corrections or additions, the email address at the obituaries desk is more reliable than the phone during peak hours. They respond faster to written requests because they can reference the submission directly. A quick note like "Submission #28471, please add surviving niece to the family list" typically resolves within three hours if submitted before noon.
