Obituaries in St Tammany Parish: A Practical Guide to the Digital Shift
Most funeral homes in the area have moved their obituary publishing online, and the workflow isn't as complicated as it looks, but there are enough small gotchas that people still mess it up if they haven't done it before. I spent a few years helping families navigate this after my own grandmother passed away, and the main takeaway is that you want to get your details right upfront because once the obituary goes live, corrections can be a pain depending on the publication. The digital obituary landscape in St. Tammany Parish is mostly made up of a handful of funeral home sites, the Times-Picayune archives, and a few community memorial platforms. Each one has different technical requirements and policies. Funeral home sites like those run by Burghard-Swartz or other local houses typically embed their obituaries directly and syndicate them to legacy.com, which is useful because it gives your content wider visibility, but it also means you're subject to legacy.com's editing standards once it gets pulled in. The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com obituary section is the traditional heavyweight here, and their submission process requires you to go through their website form or work directly with a funeral home partner. They have strict word count limits for the free tier and will charge per additional line if you need more detail. I learned this the hard way when I accidentally submitted a 600-word obituary for my grandfather and got hit with charges I didn't expect. The workaround was straightforward once I figured it out: strip the detailed life narrative down to the mandatory biographical skeleton for the newspaper version, then post the full long-form memorial on the funeral home's website or a dedicated memorial site like Forevermissed. That way the paid newspaper space carries the essentials and the digital platform carries the actual story.
When you're writing the obituary itself, the most common mistake I see is people burying the service details too late in the text. Funeral directors and family members both do this. The time, date, and location of the visitation and the funeral or memorial service should appear in the first third of the piece, not buried in a paragraph near the end. People reading on their phones on the bus don't scroll back for that information. Put it early and put it clearly. Another thing that catches people off guard is the difference between an obituary and a death notice. A death notice is essentially a factual announcement — name, age, date of death, service details, surviving family. It's short and it's cheap or sometimes free. An obituary includes the biographical narrative, the life story, the personal details. If your budget is tight, start with a death notice in the paper and use the digital space for the fuller story. This is the approach most funeral directors will recommend, and it's usually the right call. For the actual submission process: gather your copies of the death certificate first. You'll need the exact legal name, date of birth, date of death, cause of death (usually not published but required for the form), and the informant's name. Some publications require a copy of the death certificate before they'll publish. Have a PDF ready. Also gather the surviving family list — full names, relationships, and cities they live in. Getting this compiled before you start writing saves you from having to pause and look things up mid-process.
Photos matter more than most people realize. Digital obituaries on the Times-Picayune site and most funeral home platforms support image uploads, and a decent photograph increases the likelihood that people will engage with the memorial. Aim for a clear, well-lit headshot or a respectful candid photo from during the person's life. Avoid group photos where the deceased is hard to identify, and don't use anything that looks like a casual snapshot from a party unless it truly captures who the person was. The resolution should be at least 600 pixels on the shortest side. Anything lower looks pixelated on modern screens and makes the whole thing look amateurish. Here's a detail that trips people up constantly: check the spelling of every surviving family member's name before you submit. I've seen too many obituaries with misspelled names because the writer assumed they knew how someone spelled their own name. Call or text the person if you're unsure. A misspelled name in a published obituary is something that sticks around, and families notice it immediately. If you want to preserve the full story beyond the standard obituary format, there are a few platforms worth considering. Legacy.com's memorial sites allow you to post the full obituary along with photo galleries, videos, and a guestbook where people can leave messages. These persist indefinitely unless you or the family chooses to remove them. Forevermissed works similarly and is often used as a supplement to the funeral home's own page. The advantage of having a dedicated memorial page is that it becomes a gathering point for stories and memories that wouldn't fit in the traditional obituary space.
Get the Full Details
One practical edge case that I ran into personally: my grandmother's obituary included her maiden name, which she hadn't used in forty years, and I forgot to include the married surname in the initial submission. The funeral director caught it before it went live, but this is exactly the kind of thing that can slip through. Always double-check that both surnames are present if relevant, and make sure the order matches what the family wants — some people prefer maiden name first for genealogical clarity, others prefer married name first. There's no standard, so ask. There are real limitations to be aware of. Digital obituaries on free platforms are susceptible to being taken down if there's a dispute among family members about who has authority over the content. I've seen this happen more than once where siblings disagreed on what should be included, and the platform would lock the page until the conflict was resolved. It's messy and usually unresolved for months. The best prevention is to have the primary decision-maker — typically the executor of the estate or the designated next of kin — confirm all details in writing before submission. Another limitation is searchability. Despite being digital, most obituary pages don't rank well in Google unless they're on established publication domains. If you're hoping that someone searching for the deceased by name will find the page easily, your best bet is to submit through a funeral home that already has an established relationship with the major publications. Their content tends to index faster and rank higher than a standalone memorial page on an unfamiliar domain.
The timeline for publication varies. Funeral home sites typically go live within 24 hours of submission if everything is in order. The Times-Picayune runs obituaries on a next-day basis for submissions received before their daily cutoff, which is usually early afternoon. If you need same-day publication, you're looking at emergency rates and limited options. Plan for at least one business day of lead time. Costs range from free on funeral home sites to roughly $150 to $400 for a full-length obituary in the Times-Picayune depending on length and whether you add a photo. Legacy.com basic memorials are free, but enhanced options with photo galleries and guestbooks run extra. Always ask for the total cost before you approve the submission, because add-ons like photo placement or extended word counts can inflate the bill quickly. Preserving these records for future generations is another angle worth considering. Once an obituary is published, it typically remains archived on the publication's site indefinitely, and many are also preserved in genealogical databases. If you want to ensure a permanent copy exists outside of any single platform, take screenshots of the final published version, save the URL, and consider creating a simple PDF archive for the family. This is especially useful if the publication's website changes its layout or retires old content, which happens more often than you'd think.
One final thing that nobody warns you about: the guestbook or comments section on digital obituaries can become a significant emotional workload for whoever is managing the page. People post condolences, share memories, ask questions, and occasionally post inappropriate content. If you're designated as the person moderating the page, set aside time each day to review new entries for the first week or two after publication. Most platforms let you approve comments before they go public, but if yours doesn't, you may need to moderate reactively. Having a plan for this ahead of time prevents it from becoming an unexpected burden during an already difficult period.
