Canada Obituaries

Canada Wiki Topics

Canada Beginning Research

Getting Started Guided Research Online Learning Record Finder Research Strategies Finding Town of Origin

Record Types

Adoption Business & Occupations Cemeteries Census Church Records Colonial Records Compiled Genealogies Court Records Directories Emigration & Immigration Jewish Records Land & Property Loyalist Records Military Records Naturalization & Citizenship Newspapers Notarial Records Obituaries Online Genealogy Records Probate Records Religious Records Taxation Vital Records Websites

Canada Background

Biographies For Further Reading Gazetteers Historical Geography History Languages Maps Naming Customs Periodicals Social Life & Customs

Canada Genealogical Word Lists

French Latin

Cultural Groups

Cultural Groups Indigenous Peoples Canada Inuit Chinese in Canada

Local Research Resources

Archives & Libraries Societies Local FamilySearch Center

In other languages: English | Français

Canada

Obituaries

Canada Online Genealogy RecordsOnline
Research Help

Online Records

• 1800s-current Canada, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current at Ancestry - index ($)
• 1900-2019 United States and Canada, Index of Obituaries, 1900–2019 - index ($)
• CanadaObits.ca
  
• Canada Obituary Collection ($), index
• Canada Obituary Index from OldNews.com™ at MyHeritage — index & images ($)
• Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police obituary card index and notices, 1876-2007, images only, no index
• Canadian Health Obituaries Index File
  
• Canadian Obits
  
• Canadian Obituary Links
• Canadian Necrology
• Genealogy Buff canadian Obituaries Forum
• Le Nécrologue.com, obituaries search engine, since 2008
  
  

Introduction

Obituaries are newspaper articles published near the time of a person’s death. They include biographical information such as a person’s date and place of birth, dates of immigration, marriage dates, community service, and names and locations of surviving relatives. Long obituaries for pioneers and prominent people are often found several pages away from the brief death notices in vital statistics columns. If you know the approximate death date of your ancestor, search the entire newspaper for several dates.

Local genealogical and historical societies, public libraries, and some newspaper publishers maintain clipping files of obituaries. Printed abstracts of obituaries can also be found in various published sources, such as genealogical periodicals. A few Canadian published sources are listed in:

Jarboe, Betty M. Obituaries: A Guide to Sources. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. (FS Library book 973 V43j.)

University of Toronto has a collection of over 20,000 Canadian obituaries. The date range is late 18th century to 1977 and covers famous as well as less-famous Canadians. You can access this collection at this Toronto Library link.

See also "Newspapers," "Periodicals," and "Vital Records."

The FamilySearch Library has a few published lists of obituaries. See the Locality Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:

[PROVINCE] or [COUNTY] or [CITY] - OBITUARIES