Searching for the Right Obituary Is Not as Simple as You Think
I spent six months tracking down a single obituary for my grandfather. The digital records from ABC12 were a mess of duplicates, misfiled entries, and pages that had been archived without any clear way to find them again. What started as a simple search turned into a frustrating exercise in digital archaeology. Most people approach obituaries like they are static documents. They are not. They get moved, reprinted across multiple syndicates, scraped onto third-party aggregator sites, and sometimes simply deleted when a newspaper shuts down a section. Understanding how to navigate this landscape requires more than typing a name into Google. ABC12, like many regional television stations and newspaper partners, publishes obituaries through a combination of their own editorial process and submissions from funeral homes. The result is an uneven digital footprint. Some entries are clean, fully indexed, and linked to the original newspaper archive. Others exist only as a brief listing with no date, no full text, and a broken link if you try to dig deeper. The first thing you need to understand is that the obituary you see on ABC12's website may not be the original. It is often a republished version, sometimes edited for space or clarity, and occasionally missing key details that would matter to someone researching a family history. I learned this the hard way. When I found my grandfather's obituary on the ABC12 site, the birth year was wrong by four years and the listing of surviving family members was incomplete. Cross-referencing with the original newspaper archive from the same region corrected both issues. The ABC12 version had been condensed and trimmed. This happens all the time. Funeral homes submit their copy to multiple outlets simultaneously, and each outlet edits independently.
How to Actually Find What You Are Looking For
The most reliable approach starts with the ABC12 obituary as a starting point, not the final word. Once you locate the listing, note every detail it provides: the full name, the funeral home mentioned, the date range, and any linked articles or related stories. Then use those details to trace the original source. Most regional newspapers keep their obituary archives behind a subscription wall, but the basic entry information is often visible in search results or in newspaper Google News archives. Use the site:northcountrypublicradio.org or site:saratogian.com operators in your search to find archived versions. If you are dealing with a smaller market, the local library often maintains microfilm or digital copies of their paper's obituary section going back decades. The practical workflow I use now takes about twenty minutes per obituary when the records are well-maintained and two to three hours when they are not. The bottleneck is almost always the funeral home submission. Many modern obituaries are written by funeral directors rather than family members, which means the tone and content reflect the funeral home's template. Some include excessive biographical filler. Others are strikingly sparse. Knowing where the content originated helps you evaluate what you are reading.
Common Pitfalls That Waste Time
The biggest mistake people make is assuming that one online listing is the complete record. Search engines surface the most popular or most recently updated version of an obituary, which is rarely the original. You will see the same name appear on multiple sites with slightly different information. The death date might shift by a day. The location of the service might be listed differently. This is not a conspiracy. It is how syndicated obituary distribution works. Funerals and memorials are reported by the obituary editor at the newspaper, then submitted to wire services, then republished across affiliated platforms. Errors compound at each step. Another issue that catches people off guard is the difference between an obituary and a death notice. Obituaries are typically longer, narrative pieces written by the newspaper or a hired writer. Death notices are short, factual listings that include only the basics: name, age, date of death, and surviving relatives. ABC12 and its partner publications often blur this distinction. A listing might appear under the obituary section but contain only the bare minimum of information. If you are researching genealogy or trying to gather accurate details about a deceased relative, a death notice will not give you enough to work with. You need to find the full obituary or contact the funeral home directly for the original submission.
Get the Full Details
What the Record Often Leaves Out
Obituaries are not comprehensive biographies. They are curated summaries designed for a general audience. Military service is often mentioned only in passing. Immigrant origins are frequently omitted unless the family specifically requests inclusion. Second marriages and blended families are sometimes left out entirely due to space constraints or editorial discretion. I once found an obituary that listed a deceased person as having no surviving children when they actually had four from a previous marriage. The information had been supplied by the funeral home, which had only received contact details from one branch of the family. This is not uncommon. If you are serious about honoring someone through their obituary, you should treat it as a single data point among many. Census records, Social Security death index entries, cemetery records, and family documents will fill in the gaps. The obituary tells you when and where the person died and how the community chose to remember them. It does not tell you their full life story. No single source does that.
When ABC12 Records Are Completely Unavailable
Sometimes the obituary you need simply does not exist online. ABC12 and its partner outlets have archived selectively. Older entries from before the mid-2010s are often gone or buried in inaccessible database indexes. Local newspapers have cut costs by removing their obituary archives or moving them behind paywalls that do not guarantee access. In these cases, the record may only exist in physical form at the local historical society or library. I have made drives to three separate libraries to read microfilm because the digital record had vanished. It took half a day and produced nothing but frustration when the film was damaged or missing sections. A better fallback in many situations is contacting the funeral home directly. Most funeral homes keep digital copies of all obituaries they have submitted, regardless of whether the newspaper or television station kept theirs. A phone call or email to the funeral home that handled the arrangements can sometimes produce the original submission within a few days. This is often faster and more reliable than chasing down broken links or archived newspaper pages that no one maintains anymore.
Practical Steps forhonoring the Deceased Through Their Record
Start with the ABC12 listing if you have one. Pull every piece of information from it. Then verify the date of death against the Social Security Death Index or a public records search. Check the funeral home's website for the original submission. Look for the newspaper's archive, even if it requires a subscription. Review cemetery records if the burial site is known. Cross-reference with family members who may have saved physical copies of the obituary or know details that were omitted from the published version. Each of these steps adds a layer of accuracy that the online listing alone cannot provide. The process is tedious. It is also necessary if you want the record to be correct rather than merely convenient. I have found that spending thirty minutes on verification for each obituary you research prevents far more significant problems later. A wrong birth year in a family history project can throw off an entire branch of genealogy. An incorrect survival list can cause real emotional distress for surviving family members who discover that a sibling or child was left out of the record. The obituary becomes the official public memory of a life. Getting it right matters more than most people realize.
