Guidelines and Tips for Submitting Obituaries

You can cut and paste obits into our submission box, or send them via e-mail. But before you send anything, we'd really like for you to finish reading the rest of the page. Read the comments; then send the obits. If you do, it'll save us all a lot of trouble and extra typing.

We vastly prefer text obits to pictures of obits (again, cutting and pasting saves a lot of typing and we don't have to squint at some faded, fuzzy old picture). Please don't send pictures of newspaper clippings. Type the obits out first, and then send them. Also, please understand that these are obituary abstracts; ALL obits are edited for brevity and style.

The Important Stuff

You're probably here because you're thinking about submitting an obituary to Obit City. That's great! But just check out a few of these simple tips, and it'll make things go a lot more smoothly.

Please don't send obits that don't have death dates. "Tuesday" is not a death date. Yes, we know how to use a perpetual calendar; no, we're not going to do it a hundred times a day. Every obit must have a death date.

Every single obit submitted to this site is edited for brevity, and is also formatted to the site's style. If you cannot handle the obit being edited, then please don't submit it. These are obituary abstracts, not full obituaries.

Don't send huge batches of obits at once. Send a few (or better still, just one). You can always send more later. You can send as many as you like, but we prefer that you do it in small installments. Please don't ever send more than three at once.

Here are the main things we're looking for in an obituary (not necessarily in this order):
Date of death
Date of birth
Names of parents
Club and/or religious affiliations
Surviving relatives
Relatives who preceded the deceased in death
Where the services (if any) were held
Whether the body was cremated, buried, donated to science, etc.
Location of interment, if applicable
The name of the funeral home that handled the arrangements.

Sometimes, not all of this information is available. We realize that. Just get as much of it as you can.

Older is better. We can get current obits all day long. Thousands of people die every day, so recent obits are quite easy to find. We prefer older obits, ones that might be difficult for the average person to locate. That's why we all need to work together. You may have research capabilities that we don't, just as we may have access to microfilm and other resources that you don't. Older obituaries are a real treasure. And by "older", we don't even necessarily mean "ancient".

Even obits from a mere decade ago are getting tougher to find.

The primary focus of Obit City is now on older obituaries.

We used to have a much longer list of guidelines, but this covers the basics. Sometimes, we use volunteers at Obit City. If you'd like to volunteer, just read over these guidelines, and send us an email. If there's anything you don't understand, we'll try to help clear up any confusion.