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Genealogy & Local History in Buffalo, NY

Death Notices and Obituaries in Buffalo & Erie County, NY

A good obituary can be a genealogical gold mine, but finding one isn't always simple or straightforward. You will have the best results if you know the month, day, year, and place that the person died.

Links have been added wherever possible to assist the out-of-town researcher, but local newspapers published before the invention of computerized typesetting, with some random exceptions, are not online. They are on microfilm.

No law requires that a person's death be announced in the newspaper. It is entirely voluntary. It can be expensive to take out a death notice. In the 19th century, it was common for the deaths of women, children, and the poor to go unannounced.

Obituary research can always be performed in person at:

Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Grosvenor Room (BECPL)
Buffalo History Museum, Research Library (BHM)

Table of Contents

Major Obituary Sources

Minor Obituary Sources
Frequently Asked Questions

Finding Buffalo Newspapers

Major Obituary Sources

Date of Death	Source	Format	Death Notices or Obituaries Aren't these the same thing?	Full Text or Citation What's the difference?	Cost & Notes
1795-1952	New York Deaths & Burials	Website	Neither. Gives first name, last name, place and date of death, and sometimes names of parents or children	Neither	Free. Includes about 7,500 names from Erie County.
1811-1880	Erie County, New York Obituaries as Found in the Files of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society	"Search in this text" option tells you if a name appears within. Owned by several libraries.	Both	Citation only	Free for in-person users, available through interlibrary loan.
1811-2001	Obituary Index	Large card file at BHM, not online	Mostly obituaries for prominent citizens, some death notices. About 99,000 names.	Citation only	Admission is free for Museum members and $7 for all others
1851-1980	New York Times	Website	The NYT carried obituaries for prominent Buffalonians.	Full text	Mix of free & fee-based articles
1872-present	Index of Selected Newspaper Obituaries	Website	Gives last name, first name, and date of death	Neither	Free, About 80,000 names.
1878-1898	Erie County Medical Examiner Records	In book form only at BHM, not online	Gives last name, first name, date of death	Deaths handled by the ME	Admission is free for Museum members and $7 for all others
1882-1892	A Necrology Excerpted and Organized From Buffalo City Directories	PDF. Also in book form at BECPL & BHM	Gives last name, first name, age, and date of death for those over age 16 who died in Buffalo	Neither	Free as a very slow-loading PDF
1890-1910	Chronicling America: Newspapers at the Library of Congress	Website	Both, but only a few downstate papers are presently online for NY state	Full text	Free
Late 19th c. to 1982, most are 1930- 1982	Local History File	Large card file at BECPL, not online except for some sample cards	Mostly obituaries for prominent citizens, few death notices	Citation only, then you use the library's microfilm or scrapbooks to get the full text	Free for on-site users
Late 19th & early 20th centuries	FultonHistory.com	Website	Possibly both	Full text	Free. Often marred by uncorrected OCR and illegible scans.
1962 to present	Social Security Death Index	Website	Dates of death for over 90 million Americans from all 50 states	Does not give maiden names, middle names, burial place, or next of kin	Free
1977 to present	Genealogy Bank	Website	Possibly both. Includes the Buffalo News (1989 to present), Niagara Gazette, and Tonawanda papers.	Citation only	Membership required to get full text
1989 to present	Buffalo News commercial website	Website	Obituaries only	Full text of local news articles, including obituaries but not death notices	Small charge to retrieve full text
1989 to present	Buffalo News subscription database	Proprietary database at BECPL and UB, requires library card for log-in	Obituaries only	Full text of local news articles, including obituaries but not death notices	Free for in-person lookups and downloads.
Sept. 11, 1997 to present	Buffalo News commercial website	Website	Death notices only	Full Text	Free for three months, then fee-based
Last four weeks	Buffalo News commercial website	Website	Obituaries only	Full text	Free for 4 weeks, then fee-based thereafter
Varies	Buffalo & Erie County Public Library	Books & journals	Usually just name & date of death	List of little-known necrologies	Free for in-person library users
Varies	Google Books	Website	Varies	Varies	Free. Your ancestor's passing may have been noted in one of the books or journals digitized by Google.
Varies	Google News Archive	Website	Possibly only obituaries	Full Text	Small charge to retrieve full text

Minor Obituary Sources

Please be aware that most of these sites offer only a handful to a few hundred names. These links have been moved to Delicious.

Frequently Asked Questions About Obituaries

Aren't obituaries and death notices the same thing?	No, there is a distinction. A death notice contains factual information about the deceased: name, date of death, surviving kin, and place of burial. It is a classified ad paid for by the family. An obituary contains narrative, biographical data about the deceased, who was someone of some kind of prominence. It is a news article written by a staff writer. Today, a typical issue of the Buffalo News contains about six obituaries and 50 death notices. Obituaries go into their online news archive; death notices go into a separate commercial database and are not found by searching past news articles.
What do full text and citation mean?	Full text means that every word in the original obituary or death notice has been copied. Citation means that you are given only the name of the newspaper, the date, and the page number where the obituary or death notice will be found.
I don't know the exact day (month, day, year) but I think the person died after 1962.	If the person died after 1962, he or she might be found in the U.S. Social Security Death Index.
I don't know the exact date but I think the person died before 1962.	In this case, try getting a copy of the death certificate, which will give the exact date of death. See: Vital Records.
Who has every newspaper published in Erie County?	BECPL and BHM have the most comprehensive collections of Buffalo newspapers. However, most papers from the towns and villages of Erie County are found only in the appropriate town library. A list of town libraries can be seen at Libraries of Buffalo & Erie County.
What's the oldest newspaper in Buffalo?	The first newspaper in Buffalo, the Buffalo Gazette, began publishing in 1811. It is owned by BHM.
What old Buffalo newspapers are online?	Here are the ones we know about.
How hard it is to find obituaries and death notices in the paper?	By the 1930s, newspapers usually have a table on contents on the first page telling you where the death notices and obituaries will be found. In pre-1930 newspapers, death notices and obituaries are usually found on the first or second page or the last or second-last page.
What about older newspapers?	Newspapers from before 1900 often have microscopic print and are hard to read. Sometimes the death notice might say only John Smith died Tuesday at his home and who the pallbearers, not next of kin, were. Nineteenth century death notices are rarely as informative as modern ones.
What if I can't come to Buffalo to look up my own obituaries?	Try to get a copy of the death certificate. It will reveal the exact date of death. Ask the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library to look. Hire a researcher. Use interlibrary loan. The New York State Library lends out every film listed here. Contact your local librarian to place all interlibrary loan requests.

Finding Buffalo Newspapers

Back in the 1960s, libraries across America microfilmed all their newspapers and discarded the hard-copy originals. This was because newspapers consumed staggering amounts of space and got too brittle to withstand ordinary handling. In spite of its flaws, newspapers are archived on microfilm to this day. Here are lists of which libraries have which newspapers on film.

Erie County Newspapers on Microfilm--a master list brought to you by the New York State Library
Death Notices & Obituaries: Where to Look in Buffalo Newspapers--brought to you by the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library
Newspapers on Microfilm at the Buffalo History Museum
Some Online Newspaper Links

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