Scranton's Enduring Legacy: Uncovering The Rich History Of The Times Tribune Obituaries
The Times-Tribune ran obituaries in Scranton for roughly a century before the paper folded into other outlets. If you are digging into that record, you are looking at one of the most useful local historical resources in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The city had a massive immigrant population, coal industry employment, and strong ethnic neighborhoods. The obits reflect all of that. They are not polished corporate memorials. They are rough, detailed, and full of information that does not exist anywhere else. I spent several months compiling family histories from these papers, and the process is more frustrating than most people expect. The scans are not perfectly organized. Page numbers shifted over the decades. Some microfilm reels are damaged. The Scranton Public Library has the print archives on microfilm, and the University of Pennsylvania and other regional institutions hold additional copies. You need to know which reel to pull before you start wasting time.
Where the records actually live
The primary collection sits at the Scranton Public Library on Mulberry Street. They have the Times-Tribune on microfilm going back to the 1800s and also hold the earlier Times and Tribune titles that merged into it. The library uses a card catalog system and a digital search interface, but the digital search is incomplete. It misses names that are misspelled, hyphenated, or listed under a maiden name. The microfilm reader requires you to know the approximate date range. If you are off by even a few years, you could be scrolling through hundreds of pages for nothing. Beyond the library, the University of Scranton's special collections holds some supplementary materials, and the Lackawanna County genealogical society maintains index cards that predate the digital records. I found an obituary for my grandmother's cousin that was completely absent from the online database but appeared in their handwritten index. The card file is not digitized, so you have to visit in person and request access.
What the obituaries actually contain
A typical Times-Tribune obituary from the 1940s through the 1970s will include the full name of the deceased, age, address, surviving family members, employer, union affiliation, church membership, and the arrangements for the service. The employer and union details are where the real historical value lives. A coal miner might be listed as working at the Lackawanna Coal Company, Mine 6, with the United Mine Workers local number. That tells you exactly where someone worked and which union chapter they belonged to. Most online genealogy databases do not capture that level of detail. The addresses are also critical. Scranton's neighborhoods were tightly defined by ethnicity and industry. Italian families clustered around South Pier Street. Irish families tended toward the wards near the railroad yards. Polish communities established themselves around Adams Avenue. A street address from an obituary lets you map where a family lived, which then points you toward the right church records, the right school district, and the right labor union local.
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How to actually search efficiently
Start with the library's digital archive at scrantonlibrary.org if you have a library card. The search function works, but you need to broaden your parameters. Search by last name only, then filter by year manually. The year filter sometimes fails on records where the date metadata is incorrect. I have seen obituaries filed under the wrong year, usually because the funeral home submitted the notice late or the typesetter made an error. Once you identify a candidate record, pull the corresponding microfilm reel. The library staff can tell you which reel number corresponds to which date range, but they do not maintain a perfect cross-reference. Bring a notepad. Write down the reel number, the date, and the page. The microfilm readers do not have good print options. You will need to transcribe what you need by hand or take photographs if the machine allows it. For records before the merger, you are looking at the Times or the Tribune separately. The Tribune had a longer run and more detailed coverage of the Irish and Catholic communities. The Times leaned more toward the Italian and Polish neighborhoods. Knowing which paper to target based on the family's ethnic background can cut your research time significantly.
The workaround I use for missing or damaged reels
About a third of the microfilm reels from the 1950s and early 1960s have scratches, breaks, or faded sections. The library cannot replace them. When I hit a damaged section, I shift to checking the obituary indexes published in the same paper. The Times-Tribune occasionally ran compilation lists of recent deaths, especially on Sundays. These lists are shorter and sometimes survive even when the full-page obituary does not. The compilation lists give you enough information to confirm a death and locate the family. You can then search cemetery records or church registers to fill in the gaps. Another trick that works occasionally: check the society pages. The Times-Tribune published social columns that mentioned survivors and funerals in passing. A brief reference to "Mrs. Maria Kowalski attended the Mass for her husband John" can point you to an obituary that your main search missed. I spent two days looking for one person through the obituary index alone and found the answer in a society column three weeks later.
Common mistakes people make
The biggest error is assuming the digital database is complete. It is not. Hundreds of obituaries exist only on microfilm. Another mistake is ignoring maiden names. Women are listed under their married names in the obituaries, but the index sometimes uses the husband's surname while the actual notice refers to the woman by her maiden name or both names. Always search both variations. A third mistake is treating the dates as absolute. Funeral notices were sometimes delayed by several days, especially during the busy holiday seasons or periods of high mortality from the coal industry accidents. If someone died in late December, the obituary might not appear until January. Check a two-week window around the expected date.
What the obituaries cannot tell you
Be clear about the limitations. These records will not give you birth certificates, immigration manifests, or naturalization papers. They will not tell you about non-fatal illnesses, estrangements, or family conflicts. The obituaries were written by families or funeral homes, not by journalists doing independent reporting. They present an idealized version of the deceased. The employer listed might be the company the person retired from ten years earlier, not their current workplace. The church membership might reflect the family's nominal affiliation rather than active participation. The paper itself had ownership changes and editorial shifts that affected coverage. During periods of labor unrest in the coal industry, obituaries for striking miners sometimes received less prominent placement or were compressed into smaller sections. This is not conspiracy. It is simply how newspapers operated under economic pressure and community politics. If you are researching a family connected to the labor movement, expect some gaps or reduced coverage during the strike years of the 1900s and 1920s.
Supplementary sources you should use
Do not stop at the newspaper. The obituaries point you toward other records. The address from an obituary can lead to city directories, which list every resident at that address by year. The employer name connects to union records held at the Pennsylvania State Archives. The church mentioned links to parish registers that often survive even when civil records do not. The cemetery where the person is buried holds plot records that can confirm relationships between family members. The Lackawanna County Orphans' Court records and the probate files are another layer. If the deceased left an estate, there will be a file that names heirs, creditors, and sometimes detailed biographical information. These records are held at the Lackawanna County Courthouse and are publicly accessible, though the filing process is slow and requires patience. The Times-Tribune obituaries are a starting point, not an endpoint. They are valuable because they exist at the intersection of personal grief and community record-keeping. A coal miner from Lattimer dies in 1947, and his obituary tells you his union local, his wife's maiden name, his children's schools, and the parish he attended. That is more information than you get from a death certificate. Use it, then follow wherever it leads.
