Researching Old Albany Times Union Obituaries Without Losing Your Mind
I spent three days last month trying to track down an obituary for a great-aunt who died in 1998. The digital archive is a mess, the print index is wrong in places, and if you go in blind you will waste half a weekend. Here is what actually works. Start with the Times Union's own archive at troytimesunion.com, not the main NYTimes site. The Albany edition uses a different digital system. You can search by name and date range, but here is the catch: the OCR is inconsistent for anything before 2008. Names come back as gibberish sometimes. I learned this the hard way when a search for "Margaret Kowalski" returned nothing, but the same person showed up under "Margaret Kowalsky" once I switched to a broadened wildcard search. The paywall is real. A subscription runs about $4 a week for digital access, but it is cheaper than driving to the library every time you hit a dead end. The free tier only shows you headlines now, not full text. You can see that someone died and when, but figuring out who they were requires the paid version or a physical copy.
Practical workaround: Use the New York State Library's website instead. They have a free digitized archive of Albany County newspapers going back decades. The interface is ugly, but it costs zero dollars and includes Times Union content. Search by date first, then scan. It takes longer per issue but you save money and avoid the paywall entirely. I use this for pre-2005 records.
What You Actually Find in These Obituaries
The format in the Times Union changed over the years. In the 1980s and early 1990s, obituaries were short. Two or three paragraphs, sometimes less. The family often wrote them themselves, and they tended to stick to basics: where you were born, what school you went to, who survived you. Extended family like cousins or in-laws were rarely mentioned unless the writer specifically included them. By the 2000s, they got longer. People started writing more detailed life summaries, listing hobbies, volunteer work, even favorite restaurants. This is useful but unreliable. People often exaggerate or include details that are wrong. I found one obituary that claimed my grandfather served in the Korean War. He did not. He served in Vietnam. The writer was mixing him up with a neighbor. Always cross-reference with census records or military files before trusting the obituary. The print version from before 1997 is the most valuable source. Digital archives skip issues occasionally. Microfilm at the Albany County Public Library fills those gaps. They have the physical paper on microfilm reels going back to the late 1800s. The library lets you read them on-site for free. You can also request copies through interlibrary loan, but that takes two to three weeks.
Get the Full Details
Common Problems and How to Fix Them
Problem 1: The name is spelled wrong in the database. I found this constantly with Eastern European surnames. Immigration records show one spelling, the obituary uses another. The workaround is to search phonetically. Use "Kowalsk" instead of "Kowalski" to catch both. The Times Union database supports this if you know to ask for it. It is not obvious. You have to click "advanced search" and check the wildcard box. Problem 2: The date is off by a day or two.
Obituaries are published the day before the funeral usually. Sometimes the same day. If your ancestor died on a Tuesday, the obituary might run Wednesday morning or Tuesday evening. Search a three-day window around the death date to be safe. Do not assume the date in the headline is the exact date of death. Problem 3: The obituary mentions a location that no longer exists. Albany has changed a lot. Streets got renamed. Neighborhoods shifted. A 1950s obituary might list "14th Street and Erie" as an address. That intersection is different now. Map it against historical maps from the Albany County clerk's office. Their online mapping tool has layers going back to the 1940s.
Microfilm Research: What I Actually Did
I went to the Albany County Public Library on Central Avenue last October. I requested microfilm for June through August 1998. The librarian gave me a stack of four reels. I spent about six hours that day reading. It is tedious. The film is grainy. You have to manually scroll through each day's paper. Here is the trick I used: print the index page at the front of each month. It lists every obituary in that month with page numbers. I scanned the index for my target surname, noted the dates and pages, then jumped straight to those sections on the microfilm reader. This cut my research time from six hours down to about ninety minutes. The index is not always accurate. A few entries were misnumbered. I ended up scanning adjacent pages anyway just to be thorough. If you need many obituaries at once, request a copy of the library's printed obituary index. They have bound volumes going back to the 1970s. It is a black book, thick, with names listed alphabetically. You find the name, get the date, then pull the microfilm. This is faster than searching the digital archive for older records because the index includes entries the digital system sometimes misses.
When the Record Does Not Exist
Sometimes there is no obituary at all. Small deaths, unclaimed bodies, families who could not afford the newspaper fee. The Times Union charges by the line. A short notice might be fifty dollars. A full-page bio can run over two hundred dollars. In the 1990s, this was steep for working-class families. Some people simply did not get printed notices. In those cases, check the funeral home records. The Albany Funeral Home Association kept files on most services. They are archived at the New York State Archives in Albany. You need a research appointment and a letter of authorization from the next of kin, but it is doable. I have pulled files this way for clients. The funeral home cards list the deceased, the service date, the pastor, and sometimes the cemetery plot number. That plot number alone can unlock cemetery records. Another option is the coroner's report. If the death was sudden or unexplained, the Albany County coroner's office has files. These are not public record in the same way, but genealogists with a legitimate family connection can request copies through the county clerk. It takes six to eight weeks. Do not expect quick results.
A Note on Privacy and Sensitivity
These obituaries contain real information about living people too. Spouses, children, grandchildren are often listed with full names and sometimes cities. I have seen researchers publish these details on public family trees without permission. That is a bad practice. Keep sensitive data private. Use the obituary for your own research, not for scraping other people's information onto the internet. The Times Union does redact some details in recent years, but older records are fully visible. If you are researching a living relative, be careful about what you share. I have a rule: I only publish obituary details for people who have been dead at least twenty years. Everything else stays in my private notes.
Bottom Line
The Times Union obituary archive is a solid resource, but it requires patience. The digital system has gaps. The print version is better for older records. Use the state library for free access to pre-2005 content. Bring a notebook, scan the index first, and verify dates against other sources. The information is there, but you have to work for it.
