Reading Erie Times News Obituaries: What You Actually Need to Know
The Erie Times News is a daily newspaper covering Erie County, Pennsylvania. Their obituary section runs every day and contains death notices, full obituaries, and survivor listings. If you are looking into family history or researching a specific person, this is one of the more accessible local sources, but it comes with a few quirks you should know about before you start digging. I spent a few weeks last year going through the Times News obituary archive for someone in my extended family. The process was mostly straightforward, but there were a couple of things that tripped me up. I will walk through the practical side of accessing these records and what to watch out for. The easiest route is the Erie Times News website directly. They maintain an online obituary section at erietimesnews.com/obituaries. You can search by name, date range, and sometimes keyword. The site uses a third-party platform called Legacy Lives, which is standard for many Pennsylvania papers. You can view obituaries going back roughly 15 to 20 years online without paying anything. Older entries past that window require either a print archive visit or a subscription through NewsBank.
NewsBank carries the full newspaper archive. If you have a public library card from Erie County, you can often get free access to their NewsBank terminal at the branch. The Erie County Public Library system offers this. I used the Main Street branch in Erie and was able to pull obituaries from the early 2000s without any trouble. You bring your library card, go to the reference desk, and ask about NewsBank access. It takes about 30 seconds to get set up. For older material, the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia holds some Erie County newspapers, but their Erie Times News holdings are limited. The real bulk of pre-2000 records lives in the Erie County History Center. They have the microfilm collection. It is a physical archive. You need to go there in person and request the reel you need. Expect to spend about 20 to 30 minutes per month of microfilm you want to scan through.
What the Records Actually Contain
A standard Erie Times News obituary from the last decade typically includes the deceased person's full name, age, date of death, a short biographical paragraph, survivors, and the funeral home handling arrangements. Death notices are even more pared down. They may only list the name, age, date of death, and surviving family members in a bare format. The difference matters when you are researching. A full obituary can give you a middle initial, a former employer, a military unit, or a church affiliation. A death notice might give you nothing but a name and a date. One thing I learned the hard way: the name listed on the obituary is not always the name the person was known by. I was searching for a relative who went by a nickname throughout her life. The obituary used her legal first name. I spent about two hours searching for the wrong name before I realized I needed to cross-reference with the social security death index. The SSDI has the legal name and the death date, which then let me confirm the obituary was for the right person. Use the SSDI alongside the newspaper record. It cuts your search time significantly.
Get the Full Details
Common Pitfalls
Misspellings in the online search. The Legacy Lives search interface is not forgiving with typos. If you misspell a last name, it does not correct it. It just returns nothing. I once searched for a name that had been misspelled on the actual obituary. The search returned zero results. I had to go to the physical archive and browse the page manually. Before you rely on an empty search result, try alternate spellings or check the printed version if you have access to it. Not all deaths are covered. The Times News does not publish an obituary for every person who dies in Erie County. Many families choose to publish in smaller local weeklies or do not publish at all. If you cannot find someone in the Times News, that does not mean the person died elsewhere or that the record does not exist. Check the Presque Isle Blaster or the Star Signal as alternative publications. Also check the obituary section of WFBE or other nearby radio stations that sometimes carry death announcements. Paywalls on recent articles. The Times News has moved some of its content behind a subscription wall. This affects obituaries that were published less than a year ago in some cases. If you hit a paywall, the library NewsBank terminal usually still lets you view the full article. That is one reason why the library route is worth setting up.
Advanced Research Notes
If you are doing genealogical research, the most useful technique is to combine the obituary with a Pennsylvania Death Certificate filed through the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The death certificate gives you the exact place of death, the attending physician, the burial location, and the informant who reported the death. The obituary gives you the social context. Together they form a much stronger record than either alone. The death certificate is available through the PA Health Department for a fee. It takes about 2 to 3 weeks to process by mail. Another thing people overlook: the Funeral Home section of the obituary. The funeral home listed is often the one that handled all arrangements. In many cases, they keep records of the services, the burial plot location, and sometimes even copies of the original obituary text. I contacted a local funeral home in Erie after finding an obituary that listed them as the arranger. They had a file on the person that included a program from the service. That program had a handwritten note on the back with a middle name I had never seen anywhere else. It was a small thing, but it resolved a question I had been stuck on for months.
Limitations and When to Look Elsewhere
The Erie Times News obituary database is not comprehensive. It does not cover the entire county equally. Rural areas may have fewer records published. The online search functionality is limited. It does not support wildcard searches, and date range searches can be finicky if you go back more than five years at a time. You are better off searching in six-month increments than trying to pull a five-year span in one go. For records before 2000, the microfilm at the Erie County History Center is your best bet, but the facility is small and the staff is minimal. They do not offer much in the way of research assistance. You are on your own to identify the right reel and then read through it yourself. If you need help, the Erie County Genealogical Society has members who are familiar with the collection and can point you to the right reel faster than you could find it alone. The bottom line is that the Erie Times News obituaries are a solid resource for recent decades, but they require some legwork to use effectively. The online search helps for the last 15 years. For anything older, plan for a physical visit or a library session. Cross-reference with other sources. And do not stop at a single record. The full picture usually comes together when you layer the obituary with the death certificate, the funeral home file, and whatever else you can find.
