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Florida obituaries are notices of death that provide information about recently deceased persons in the state of Florida. They are typically found in the state's newspapers, though they can also be found through funeral homes. Online databases, local libraries, and archives house these records, including historical newspapers across the 67 counties of Florida. MyHeritage has multiple online collections that include Florida obituaries:
- Florida, Tampa Bay Obituaries and Death Notices on MyHeritage: Nearly 500,000 records from the year 1826 onwards.
- Florida, Sarasota County Obituaries on MyHeritage: A total of 296,000 records from 1900 onwards.
- Newspaper and Funeral Home Obituaries on MyHeritage: More than 8.6 million records covering the entire United States, including the state of Florida.
- United States and Canada, Index of Obituaries, 1900-2019 on MyHeritage: A collection that indexes 17.9 million obituaries in newspapers across the U.S. (including Florida) and Canada.
Information found in an obituaryInformation found in an obituary
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An obituary typically includes the name of the deceased, date and place of death, age at death, and burial place. Surviving family members are commonly named, like spouse, children, and grandchildren. In some cases, the individual's place of birth, parents' names, and siblings' names are also provided. It is a best practice to find an obituary for each of your relatives and their siblings who may have died in Florida to piece together family groupings.
The further back in time you go, obituaries tend to contain less information. Notable or well-known individuals are more likely to have more lengthy write-ups, like this obituary for William Stanley Hanson (pictured right), a well-known photographer and friend of Native American tribes who lived in Florida.
More modern obituaries, especially in the last few decades, are likely to have more biographical details and regularly include a photo of the individual. Notations of trade or occupation, military service, interests or hobbies, memberships or affiliations, and immigration details (if applicable) are much more common in 21st century obituaries.
How to find Florida obituariesHow to find Florida obituaries
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Those interested in finding Florida obituaries should start with the Florida Digital Newspaper Library, an extraordinary resource spearheaded by the University of Florida that covers the state's historical newspapers back to the 1940s. The searchable database allows you to enter a person's name or surname and get instant results. It is free to search and the images are free to browse.
The University of Central Florida has published a research guide for Florida Newspapers that extends beyond the digital collection mentioned above. If you are on site at a UCF library, you can search the Florida Collection of Historical Newspapers from ProQuest, which spans 13 Florida communities. Another library that provides access to obituaries is the John F. Germany Public Library in Hillsborough County. It claims that its genealogy collection is "one of the largest in the southeastern United States."[1]
In addition, the Library of Congress Digital Library has images of 56 Florida historical newspapers available to search from across the state, dating back to the 1800s. One more source to try is the Google News archive.
If you are researching in the Tampa Bay area or Sarasota County, the MyHeritage obituary collections for those locations are worth checking.
For recent obituaries, you can search by metro area, by county, by city, or statewide at Legacy's Florida Obituaries page. Those records begin around the 2000s and they are indexed by name. The collection grows on a regular basis.
Explore more about Florida obituariesExplore more about Florida obituaries
- Florida Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries on MyHeritage
- Florida Digital Newspaper Library by the University of Florida
- Search Florida Newspapers by Digital Collections of University of Florida
- Historical Florida Newspapers Research Guide by the Unviersity of Central Florida
- Digitized Florida Newspapers at Library of Congress Digital Library
- Florida Obituaries at Legacy
- How to Locate an Obituary for Your U.S. Ancestor by Jeniann Nielsen on MyHeritage
References
- ↑ Genealogy Collection | John F. Germany Public Library in Hillsborough County, Florida https://hcplc.org/locations/jfg/genealogy