Press & Media Kit
Resources for journalists, researchers, and anyone writing about obituary monitoring, death notification systems, or estate administration technology.
Company Overview
ObituaryMonitor is an automated obituary monitoring service that helps families, professionals, and organizations receive timely notification when someone passes away. The service continuously scans publicly available obituary sources across the United States and sends email or SMS alerts when high-confidence matches are found.
The service addresses a fundamental information gap: the United States has no centralized database of deaths. Death records are fragmented across thousands of state offices, county clerks, funeral homes, and newspaper archives. ObituaryMonitor aggregates publicly available obituary notices from multiple sources to provide broader coverage than manual searching allows.
Founded
2024
Headquarters
United States
Obituary Sources Monitored
2,500+
Geographic Coverage
All 50 US States
Matching Accuracy
90%+ confidence threshold
Alert Methods
Email and SMS
Obituary & Death Record Statistics
Citable facts about obituary publishing and death records in the United States.
~2.8 million
Annual deaths in the United States
Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, 2023
19,000+
Funeral homes operating in the United States
Source: National Funeral Directors Association
1-5 days
Typical time between death and obituary publication
Source: Industry observation
No central database
The US has no single, searchable database of all deaths or obituaries
Source: Fragmented across state, county, and private sources
~70%
Estimated percentage of deaths that result in a published obituary
Source: Industry estimates vary; many deaths have no public obituary
1,200+
Daily newspapers in the US that publish obituaries
Source: Pew Research Center
Who Uses Obituary Monitoring
Common use cases for automated death notification services.
Estate & Legal
- Estate attorneys monitoring clients
- Trust administrators
- Probate professionals
Financial Services
- Life insurance companies
- Pension administrators
- Debt collection agencies
Personal
- Families monitoring elderly relatives
- Genealogists tracking distant relatives
- Reconnecting with lost contacts
Research
- Academic studies on mortality
- Demographic researchers
- Public health surveillance
Key Messages
- 1
The US has no central death database. Unlike some countries, there's no single source to check whether someone has died. Information is scattered across thousands of disconnected systems.
- 2
Obituaries are published across 19,000+ funeral homes and 1,200+ newspapers. Manual searching is impractical for most people who need timely notification.
- 3
We monitor publicly available obituary notices only. We do not scrape private databases or access restricted records. All sources are publicly accessible obituary publications.
- 4
High-confidence matching reduces false positives. We require 90%+ match confidence before sending alerts, using multiple data points (name, location, age, relatives) rather than simple name matching.
Press Contact
For press inquiries, interview requests, or additional information, please contact:
Response Time
Within 24-48 hours
Related Resources
US Obituary Data Fragmentation
Visual guide to the fragmented obituary landscape: 19,000+ funeral homes, 1,200+ newspapers, no central database.
How to Find Out If Someone Has Died
In-depth guide covering search methods, limitations, and when monitoring is more effective.
For Researchers
Information for academic researchers and journalists studying death notification.
How It Works
Technical overview of the monitoring and matching process.