Understanding Our Methodology
This page explains how ObituaryMonitor actually works today: how we score matches, which sources we scan, how quickly alerts go out, and where coverage still has gaps. We would rather be precise than impressive.
Our Philosophy: Accuracy Over Volume
We prioritize high-confidence alerts over maximizing the number of emails we send. That means:
How Our Matching Works
Every candidate is scored across several signals. Hard mismatches (wrong last name, incompatible first name) are discarded. The rest accumulate confidence from location, age, relatives, and middle-name alignment. Advanced name matching covers nicknames, typos, and maiden names in more detail.
Name Matching
Primary WeightFirst and last name are hard gates. First names match exactly or via 150+ nickname variations (William/Bill, Elizabeth/Liz). Last names must match; longer surnames allow a small typo tolerance, and maiden names are checked when you provide one. Middle names boost confidence when they align.
Geographic Location
High WeightState is a core signal. City, metro-area, and county matches raise confidence. Secondary locations cover people who lived in more than one place or died away from home. A hard cross-state hit with no other corroboration is usually discarded.
Age / Birth Date
High when provided WeightIf you add an age range or date of birth, we compare it to the obituary. A matching birth year or full DOB increases confidence. A clear age or death-year conflict can disqualify the candidate, which is especially important for common names.
Family Connections
Medium-High WeightSpouse, children, and other relatives you list are cross-checked against names mentioned in the obituary text. Relatives are optional, but they are one of the strongest ways to confirm the right person.
Confidence Threshold
Default Alert Threshold
By default we only send email alerts at 90% confidence or higher. You can change that threshold in account preferences if you want more candidates or a stricter filter.
Candidates that score below your alert threshold can still appear in Matches to Review so you can accept or dismiss them. First-name or last-name mismatches are discarded outright to keep false positives down.
Our Data Sources
We monitor publicly available obituary sources across all 50 states. We do not scrape private databases or access restricted vital records for monitoring.
Funeral Home Websites
16,585+Direct monitoring of funeral home obituary pages nationwide — independent homes, regional groups, and major chains that publish online.
Strongest coverage where funeral homes publish obituaries on their own sites; thinner where they do not.
Newspaper Obituary Sections
980+Daily and weekly newspapers with online obituary or death-notice sections, including metro dailies and regional papers.
Better for papers with a stable digital section; weekly community papers and print-only editions are less complete.
Memorial & Aggregator Sites
Public pagesMajor memorial and aggregator sites (including Legacy.com, Dignity Memorial, and similar platforms) when notices are publicly available. We monitor public pages — we do not claim exclusive partnerships.
Useful supplement; many notices still appear first on the originating funeral home.
Stored Obituary Inventory
OngoingNewly published notices are also retained so watches can match against recent inventory, not only the live page at scan time. This inventory also powers on-demand death verification.
Inventory is not a complete national archive. Older, deleted, or never-indexed notices may still be missing.
At least 17,565 funeral home and newspaper sources are checked on a recurring schedule, plus memorial platforms when notices are public. Counts change as we add sources and drop defunct ones. Browse coverage in the funeral home directory.
Scanning Frequency
24/7
Continuous monitoring
Multiple / day
Typical source scan cadence
Hours–1 day
Usual alert delay after publication
Ongoing Watches vs. On-Demand Verification
Monitoring and verification share the same underlying inventory, but they answer different questions.
Active watches
You add a name (plus location and any identifying details). We keep scanning new obituaries and recent inventory. When confidence clears your threshold, you get an email alert and the match appears in your dashboard.
Death verification
Professionals can also run an on-demand lookup against stored obituaries and related public sources — useful when you need a point-in-time check rather than an ongoing watch. See the Death Verification API and Death-by-County Feed.
Known Limitations
No obituary monitoring service can guarantee 100% coverage. These are the constraints we will not paper over.
Not all deaths have obituaries
A large share of U.S. deaths never result in a publicly published obituary. Families may skip publication for privacy, cost, or personal reasons. We cannot find notices that were never published.
Print-only publications
Some smaller newspapers and community publications still publish obituaries only in print. Those notices are not accessible to any online monitoring service.
Funeral homes without usable websites
Homes with no website, a site that does not list obituaries, or a non-indexable listing page may not be covered. Rural coverage is improving but still uneven.
Processing delay
There is always some delay between publication and alert delivery. Most alerts arrive within hours to a day after a notice appears on a monitored source, depending on that source’s scan cadence.
Common name challenges
Very common names (John Smith, Mary Johnson) need location, age, or family context to reach high confidence. Name-only watches produce more noise and more missed edge cases.
Name variations and errors
Obituaries may use nicknames, maiden names, hyphenated surnames, or contain typos. We handle common variations automatically, but unusual spellings and incomplete source pages can still be missed.
Not a vital-records substitute
Obituary monitoring is a published-notice signal. It is not a death certificate, SSDI query, or official vital-records search. Use it for diligence and alerting — confirm legally when the matter requires it.
Privacy Commitment
What We Do
- Monitor publicly available obituary notices
- Encrypt watch-list data in transit and at rest
- Retain published obituary metadata needed for matching, historical lookup, and audit logs
- Delete your account data when you cancel
What We Don't Do
- Scrape private databases or restricted records
- Sell or share your monitoring data
- Treat an obituary match as a death certificate
- Guarantee that every death will produce a public notice
Related Pages
How It Works
Step-by-step overview of setting up a watch and getting alerts.
Name Matching
Nicknames, typos, maiden names, and common-name handling.
Death Verification API
On-demand lookup against stored obituaries for professional workflows.
FAQ
Coverage, pricing, accuracy, and what monitoring can and cannot do.