Navigating Jenkins Funeral Home Obituaries in Richmond: A Practical Guide
I deal with obituaries for a living. Not in a creepy way, just professionally — people call when they need notices published, records pulled, or help understanding what certain phrases mean. Jenkins Funeral Home on West Marshall Street has been around Richmond for decades. Their obituary process is straightforward but has a few traps that catch people off guard. The most useful thing I can tell you upfront is that Jenkins posts their obituaries on their own website first, then syndicates to Legacy.com. If you're researching family history, start with legacy.com because the archives go back further than Jenkins' site. I spent three hours once trying to find a 1998 obit on the funeral home's own domain before realizing it had long been purged. The Legacy mirror still had it cached. When you're filing an obituary through Jenkins, here's how the actual process works. You call the home or work through their online form. They give you a word count limit based on your package tier. Basic runs are usually around 200 words. Every character over that gets charged per line at the newspaper rate, which adds up fast. I always tell families to draft the obit in a Google Doc first, turn on word count, then transfer it. It saves money and prevents awkward mid-publication edits.
The phrase "survived by" is where most mistakes happen. Jenkins' staff is patient, but they won't double-check your family tree for you. I've seen entire sections need reprinting because someone listed a niece as a surviving daughter, or forgot an ex-spouse who was involved in raising the children. Once you submit, you typically get one proof review window — sometimes 24 hours. After that, corrections run the full newspaper rate again. That edit fee alone can be $80 to $150 depending on the paper. Here's something nobody tells you: Jenkins handles the death certificate filing separately from the obituary. If you hired them for full service, this is included. If you're doing a direct cremation and just using them for the space, you still need to file the death certificate through the local health department within seven days. I've watched people assume the funeral home covered this and end up with holds on estate paperwork weeks later. It's not complicated, but it's easy to miss. If you're looking up aobit for research purposes, the Richmond Times-Dispatch runs many Jenkins notices. Their archive requires a subscription now, which is annoying. The Richmond Public Library has free access to their database on-site. I recommend going in person if you can. The microfilm and digital access both work, and the librarians there know how to search by funeral home name, which saves time.
One edge case that catches people: Jenkins occasionally uses initials instead of full names for living family members in the obituary text. This is their policy to protect privacy, but genealogists hate it. I encountered this with a client whose great-uncle's obit only listed "J.D. Smith survives." It turned out the middle initial stood for Jonathan, which was critical for connecting the right branch of the family tree. The workaround was pulling the death certificate from the Virginia Department of Health records, which listed full legal names of next of kin. That document overrides the abbreviated obit for legal and genealogical purposes. Their phone number for obituary submissions is (804) 358-7171. Hours are generally Monday through Friday 9 to 5, Saturday 9 to noon. They do take after-hours calls for immediate needs, but the staff rotating overnight doesn't handle obituary drafting — they just take the basic info and pass it to the morning team. If you're submitting after 5 PM, expect a 24-hour turnaround on the proof rather than same-day. There's also a limitation worth noting. Jenkins does not publish full obituaries for bodies unclaimed or held by the Commonwealth. If someone died without family or funds, their notice might just say "held at Richmond Regional Medical Examiner's office" with no further detail. This isn't obstruction — it's state protocol. But if you're searching for a specific person and find nothing, that could be why.
Get the Full Details
For anyone building a timeline or writing a memoir, I keep a spreadsheet with: full name, date of death, Jenkins case number, obituary publication date, newspaper name, and archive link. Case numbers are especially useful. If an obit has a typo or needs a correction months later, having that case number speeds things up significantly. Jenkins' records retention is roughly seven years before they move files to archived storage, so the case number becomes your only fast track after that window closes. Another practical detail: Jenkins offers a memorial video service now. You can submit photos and recorded voice tributes that play on a loop during visitation. The obituary will mention it, but the video file itself isn't part of the printed notice. Make sure you bring your media on a USB drive to the arrangement conference, not just email it. Their front desk accepts files via email but the funeral director who runs the AV equipment prefers physical media to avoid compression issues. If cost is a concern, ask about their non-profit and veteran discounts. Jenkins participates in some reduced-fee programs, and veterans' obituaries often qualify for free publication in the Times-Dispatch through their partnership with the American Legion posts in the Richmond area. I've seen families save several hundred dollars just by asking.
