How to Find and Work With Times Daily Obituaries in Florence, Alabama
The Florence Times Daily runs obituaries out of their main office on 18th Street. If you are trying to locate a recent death notice or place one yourself, the process is straightforward but there are a few details that will trip you up if you are not careful. I have spent years tracking down death notices for family research and helping people through the submission process, and the first thing you need to know is that they publish both traditional print obituaries and a digital version on their website. The digital listings tend to appear within 24 to 48 hours of submission, but the print version follows a separate schedule. If you need something in the paper itself, you generally need to submit by 3 PM two days before the edition you want. The newspaper uses GateHouse Media, which means the online obituary platform is run through their Gannett obituary system. This is important because it affects pricing, photo submission, and how long a notice stays online after publication. A standard obituary runs for at least three consecutive days on the website before it gets archived into the permanent record. Most people do not realize that the three-day run is the baseline, not the maximum. You can pay for an extended run if you want the notice to stay more visible.
When I first started helping people with this, I ran into a problem where someone submitted an obituary with a scanned photo that turned out to be too low resolution for print. The image was pixelated and blurry in the paper version, and by the time we caught it, the edition had already gone to press. The workaround is simple: they require photos to be at least 300 DPI and a minimum of 4 inches by 5 inches at print size. If you are scanning a physical photograph, set your scanner to 600 DPI and save it as a TIFF or high-quality JPEG. Anything less and the editor will reject it or it will look bad in print. The cost structure is another area where people get confused. The Times Daily charges by the line or by the inch for text, and they have a separate rate for photos. As of my last check, a basic obituary without a photo runs around $150 to $250 depending on length, and adding a photo bumps that up by another $75 to $150. Memorial ads, which are different from traditional obituaries, cost significantly more because they are larger and placed in the dedicated memorials section. A full-page memorial ad can run $800 or more. Here is something most people miss: you can pre-plan an obituary at the newspaper. This is not the same as pre-paying with a funeral home, though some funeral directors coordinate with the paper. Pre-planning with the Times Daily means you write and approve the text while you are still alive, and the paper holds it on file. When the time comes, the funeral home or a family member just calls and confirms the death, and the notice goes to print without the family having to deal with wording and formatting during a stressful time. It saves hours of back-and-forth and reduces the chance of errors under pressure.
The online portal lets you start an obituary submission at any time, but you cannot complete the payment and final approval until someone at the funeral home or the family provides the death certificate information. This is a built-in safeguard that prevents fraudulent or premature publications. It also means you need to work with a funeral director or have immediate access to the death certificate. Without that document, your submission stays in draft mode indefinitely. If you are doing genealogy research and pulling old obituaries from the Times Daily archives, the free section only goes back a limited number of years. Most of the older content is behind a subscription paywall on their website. The workaround I use is to request microfilm copies through the Lauderdale County Public Library. They have the archives on microfilm going back decades, and library members can view them for free during regular hours. It is slower than a digital search, but it covers years that the paywall does not. One edge case worth noting: if someone died out of state but lived in the Florence area, the family might still want a Times Daily obituary. The paper will publish out-of-area deaths, but you need to make sure the obituary clearly states the person's connection to Florence. Otherwise, the editor may ask clarifying questions that delay publication. I have seen this hold up notices by a day or two while the family scrambled to provide school records, former addresses, or membership details that prove local ties.
Get the Full Details
For people who want to place an obituary quickly, calling the newspaper directly is faster than using the online form. The obituary desk phone number is listed on their website, and a live editor can take your information over the phone and type it up on the spot. This cuts the turnaround time significantly. The trade-off is that you lose the ability to make edits after submission unless you call back, whereas the online system lets you review and revise before final approval. There is no harm in contacting the funeral home that is handling the services and asking them to submit the obituary on your behalf. Most Florence-area funeral homes have a standing relationship with the Times Daily and can get the notice published faster than a family member working alone. They also know which details the editors typically question, so they tend to package the submission in a way that passes review on the first pass.
