What You Need to Know About Baue Funeral Home Records
Baue Funeral Home has been operating in Centralia, Illinois for decades. They handle a significant number of Southern Illinois deaths in that part of the state. If you are trying to find obituaries or death records through them, it is not as straightforward as typing a name into a search box and waiting. The website structure has changed a few times over the years. Right now they maintain an online obituary section, but it is limited compared to what you would get from the county clerk's office. I spent several months compiling death record search methods for people researching family history in Marion and Jefferson counties, and Baue came up frequently because of their reach across multiple towns.
Uncovering The Heart Of Southern Illinois A Journey Through Baue Funeral Home Obituaries
Here is how the process actually works in practice. First, go to their current site at bauefuneralhome.com. The obituary search is under the "Obituaries" tab. You can filter by last name or keyword. The search function is basic - it pulls from their published online memorials only. Many obituaries from before roughly 2018 are not digitized unless someone specifically uploaded them later. That is the first gap you will hit. The second thing to understand is that Baue covers more than just Centralia. They also serve parts of Mount Vernon, Columbia, and surrounding communities. If your ancestor died in one of those areas, the funeral home records might still be under the Baue umbrella even if the death certificate was filed elsewhere. I ran into this specifically when tracking down a great-uncle who died in Breese but was handled by Baue. His obituary was listed under Centralia on their site because of how they organize their content. The workaround was searching by the date range of his death rather than the location he actually lived in. Practical search strategy: start with the funeral home site for recent deaths (roughly 2018 to present). Then move to the Jefferson County Clerk for death certificates going back further. The McLeansboro Courthouse handles Pantego and Fairfield area records. Cross-reference names and dates between both sources because the funeral home obituary might list a slightly different birth date than the official certificate.
Common Pitfalls
The biggest issue people run into is assuming the online obituary equals the full record. It does not. Baue publishes a condensed version online. The full obituary that ran in the newspaper may contain additional information like surviving relatives, military service details, or church affiliation that never made it onto the website. Those newspaper versions are usually in the Illinois Digital Archives or on GenealogyBank. Another problem is the spelling variations. Southern Illinois records from the early twentieth century often have inconsistent spelling of surnames. I found one family where the name appeared as both "Baumann" and "Bauman" across different documents from the same decade. Search both versions. The obituary search tool on their site also does not support wildcard searches. If you are looking for someone with a partial name or unknown first name, you are out of luck there. Use the county records instead for that.
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When Baue Records Are Not Enough
There are scenarios where the funeral home approach completely falls apart. If the death occurred before Baue transitioned to digital record keeping, or if the family chose a different provider for the actual service, you will find nothing on their site. I encountered this with a case where the obituary listed a different funeral home than the one that actually handled the remains. The family switched providers last minute, and Baue only published the notice but never received the bodies or the full file. In those cases, the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville archives sometimes have collected newspapers that include the original obituary text. The Southern Illinois Regional Genealogical Society also maintains a card index that covers deaths in the area going back well past what Baue publishes online. That database requires an in-person visit or a paid research request, but it fills the gaps that the funeral home website leaves behind. Death certificates from the Illinois Department of Public Health are another route. You can request copies by mail for a fee. These contain the most complete official information available, including parent names, occupation, and burial location. The wait time is usually two to three weeks depending on the volume at the state level.
