Here's my reply to an email question today about obit sources; might be handy for other questions in future..
Denny
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There's no single source for all obits. You don't indicate what
the places where the people you're looking for lived and died,
or if they are famous enough to make national media or would be
likely to have obits only in local sources.
If they're famous, I'd start with the full-text historical
NEW YORK TIMES:
http://www.lib.umn.edu/site/moreinfo.phtml?id=5619
Since names may be entered in various ways (with or without middle
names or middle initials, especially), I'd usually start by ANDing
first and last names and limiting by date range.
If they are only locally known, if approximate place and date
of death are not known I'd generally look first at the Social
Security Death Index; since you do know this data already that
won't tell you much more. (The SSDI is on the web from various
vendors, some of which require registration and some which do not.)
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/
Few local newspapers were indexed in the 1930s/1940s (or have
been indexed retroactively). Minnesota newspaper indexes we
own are listed here:
http://courses.lib.umn.edu/page.phtml?page_id=942
and there is an index of Minnesota Death Certificates at
http://people.mnhs.org/dci/Search.cfm?bhcp=1
However, if you do know the date of death the assumption is that
an obit would appear within one to three or four days, so if the
individual died in a city for which we have a paper of the period,
you could look through individual issues. Wilson Library has in
the Reference "Desk" Collection a series of looseleaf notebooks
that list newspapers held in our library, arranged by state.
Some local newspaper indexes may exist only in single copies or
card files in local libraries or historical societies. Two
publications that attempt to survey and describe these are:
Milner, Anita Cheek. : Newspaper indexes : a location and subject guide for researchers /
Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1977-<1982 >
v. ; 23 cm.
Location TC Wilson Library Reference AI3 .M52x 1977
Summary Holdings v. 1
v. 2
v. 3
(and)
Lathrop report on newspaper indexes : an illustrated guide to published and unpublished newspaper indexes in the United States & Canada /
Wooster, Ohio: Published by Norman Lathrop Enterprises, 1979-
v. ; 30 cm.
Location TC Wilson Library Reference Quarto PN4867 .L37x 1979
Summary Holdings 1 v.
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In recent years, various obituary indexes have been compiled, usually by
geneaological groups, and some are available on the web. A good state-by-
state starting point is "Online Searchable Death Indexes" at:
http://www.deathindexes.com/
Another is "Obituaries 101" at
http://www.big101.com/obituaries101_death_notices_3.htm
and another is ObitsArchive.com at
http://oa.newsbank.com/
As a sidelight, here's a few sites for locating specific graves --
the first, for (many) Minnesota veterans, the second for various
once-famous people, the third for politicians:
http://people.mnhs.org/vgri/
http://www.findagrave.com/
http://politicalgraveyard.com/index.html
You might also want to look at this more elaborate research guide,
though its age has made it less useful post-WWW:
Jarboe, Betty. : Obituaries : a guide to sources /
2nd ed.
Boston, Mass. : G.K. Hall, 1989.
xv, 362 p. ; 29 cm.
Location TC Wilson Library Reference Quarto CT214 .J3x 1989
Hope this helps,
Dennis Lien / Wilson Reference // for InfoPoint@umn.edu