Add the names
First and last name, plus a city, birth year, maiden name, or the relatives you'd expect in the survivors list.
Solutions · Genealogy & research
Know when a relative's obituary is published, with the source ready for your tree.
Add the people in your family tree, from an elderly great-aunt to a second cousin on a collateral line. We check 17,565+ funeral-home and newspaper sources daily and email you when a matching obituary appears, with a link to cite in your research notes.
✓Plans from $14.95/mo✓Source link with every alert✓Cancel anytime
EMAILNew obituary matchFictional alert. We link to the original obituary; we don't copy its text.
Subject: Possible match for Eleanor R. Whitfield (94%)
Name: Eleanor Ruth Whitfield (née Danner)
Date of death: October 14, 2026
Location: Decatur, Illinois
Funeral home: Fairview Family Funeral Home (fictional)
Matched on: maiden name Danner, city, birth year 1938,
son Thomas listed as a survivor
Confidence: 94%
Read the obituary: https://example.com/obituaries/whitfield
Save the link to your tree, or dismiss if it's not her.In short
How do I get notified when a relative's obituary is published?
Add their name to an obituary alert service such as ObituaryMonitor Monitoring, along with anything you know: city, birth year, maiden name, or relatives. We check 17,565+ funeral-home websites and newspaper obituary sections daily and email you when a matching obituary is published. Each alert links to the original obituary so you can read it, confirm it's the right person, and cite it.
| What you provide | First and last name; a place, birth year, maiden name, or relatives improve matching |
|---|---|
| What you get | An email with the obituary link, location, and a confidence score |
| Sources | 17,565+ funeral-home websites and newspaper obituary sections |
| Best for | Recent and newly published obituaries, not decades-old archives |
| Plans | Starter $14.95/mo (3 names), Individual $24.95/mo (7), Plus $39.95/mo (10) |
The cost of finding out late
What it costs to find out late.
The service has already happened
A funeral or memorial is often the one time scattered cousins are in the same room, with the photos, letters, and stories that never made it into a record. Learn about it months later and that chance is gone.
The notice is hard to find again
Funeral-home websites get redesigned and memorial pages move. An obituary you could have read in the first weeks can be much harder to track down later, so it's worth capturing the link while it's live.
Manual searching doesn't scale
Checking a dozen names across the towns where each branch settled, under married names and nicknames, is hours of repeat searching. Skip a few weeks and a notice for a collateral line slips past.
What changes
What family historians get out of it.
Time to reach the family
An email soon after an obituary is published gives you a chance to attend the service, send condolences, or contact cousins while families are still gathering and sorting papers.
A citable source for your tree
Every alert links to the original obituary at its source. Save the URL and the access date in your source citation or research notes.
New names from the survivors list
Obituaries often name a spouse, children, siblings, grandchildren, and where they live. That survivors paragraph can open branches and collateral lines you didn't know about.
Fewer false matches on common names
Matching checks name, place, birth year, and the relatives you list. Add a maiden name or middle initial and the right Mary Smith scores above the wrong one.
Distant relatives watched quietly
Add a DNA match, a birth relative, or a second cousin once removed without contacting anyone. You hear about an obituary only if one is published.
Bigger projects without the busywork
For a one-name study or a long list of research subjects, the Verification API checks names in batches and returns a result and source link for each.
Which product
Three ways researchers use it.
Monitoring
Watch the people in your tree
Add a name and what you know. We email you when a matching obituary is published. $14.95, $24.95, or $39.95 a month for 3, 7, or 10 names.
Verification API
Check a long research list
Send names with a place or birth year. Get found, possible_match, or not_found with a confidence band and source link. Batches of 50, or async jobs up to 5,000 rows.
Family Extraction
See who the obituary names
Through sales: the relatives named in a matching obituary, with relationship and location where stated. Starting points to verify, not heir determinations.
Workflow
From family tree to cited source.
We check daily
17,565+ funeral-home websites and newspaper obituary sections, for as long as the watch is on.
Review the match
Each alert shows what matched and a confidence score. Open the obituary and confirm or dismiss it.
Cite the source and follow up
Save the link to your tree or research notes, then work the names, places, and dates it gives you.
Obituaries as a genealogy source
Why are obituaries so useful for family history research?
A death certificate records the essential facts. An obituary tells the family story around them. A single notice can name parents, a spouse, children, grandchildren, and siblings, often with the towns where each one lives, which lets you extend a tree in several directions at once.
Obituaries also carry details that rarely appear elsewhere: a woman's maiden name, a nickname the family used, the church or lodge she belonged to, military service, an occupation, or the town an immigrant ancestor came from. Treat these as strong clues and confirm them against other records, since obituaries are written by family and can contain errors.
Timing matters for living relatives. The survivors list tells you who is still reachable, and the weeks after a death are when families gather and decide what to keep. Monitoring is built for that window: it watches for newly published obituaries, rather than searching archives from decades ago.
- Maiden names and married names of daughters and sisters
- Survivors and those who died before, by relationship
- Places of birth, residence, and burial
- Dates of birth and death, and age at death
- Funeral home, church, and cemetery names to follow up
Fits your systems
Where matches land in your research.
Your inbox
A plain email for each match with the name, location, confidence score, and a link to the original obituary.
Your family tree
Paste the source link into the person's profile or source citation in whatever tree software you use.
Your research log
API results come back per name with a result and source link, ready to drop into a spreadsheet for a one-name study or project.
Plainly
What you get, and what you do not.
It is
- Email alerts when a newly published obituary matches someone in your tree
- A link to the original obituary you can cite
- Matching that uses maiden names, nicknames, places, and relatives
- API checks for longer research lists
It is not
- A vital records or death certificate service
- An archive of decades-old obituaries
- A copy of the obituary text
- Proof of life when nothing is found
- A legal determination of heirs
FAQ
Questions genealogists ask.
Can I watch for a woman under her maiden name?
Yes. Add her married surname and give us her maiden name, and matching will consider both. First names also match common nicknames, like Robert and Bob or William and Bill, and a middle name or initial helps separate people with the same name.
Can I monitor distant relatives I've never met?
Yes. A name is enough to start, and a city, state, or birth year makes matches more reliable. Many researchers watch DNA matches, birth relatives, and cousins on collateral lines. Nobody is contacted; you only hear from us if a matching obituary is published.
Will this find obituaries from decades ago?
That isn't what Monitoring is for. It watches for newly published obituaries, and coverage is strongest for recent notices. For older obituaries, newspaper archives, libraries, and local historical societies are better starting points; our guide to finding old obituaries online walks through them.
What does an alert contain?
The name, location, source, and a confidence score, with a link to the obituary. Alerts start at 90% confidence by default, and you can raise or lower that threshold.
How do I cite an obituary from an alert?
Use the link in the alert. We link to the original obituary on the funeral-home or newspaper site rather than copying its text, so record the publisher, the URL, and the date you accessed it in your source citation.
How much does Monitoring cost?
Starter is $14.95 a month for up to 3 names, Individual is $24.95 for up to 7, and Plus is $39.95 for up to 10. Plans bill monthly and you can cancel anytime.
Can I check a long list of names for a research project?
Yes. The Death Verification API takes up to 50 names per batch call, or async jobs up to 5,000 rows, and returns found, possible_match, or not_found with a source link. Pricing is custom; request test keys through sales.
Is this a vital records service?
No. We use public obituaries from funeral-home websites and newspapers, not death certificates or government registries. No match doesn't mean the person is alive, and relatives named in an obituary are starting points for research, not a legal determination of heirs.