Tips for Finding Obituaries in Florida (2024) (2024)

FAQs

How to find an obituary in Florida? ›

Begin by entering the name of the person, the word obituary, and “Florida” into your favorite search engine. If the deceased had a common name, you might need to add additional search terms, such as the name of a family member, the town where they lived, or the date of death.

The Web site hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths. Legacy.com hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S., by circulation.

You can typically find current obituaries through a simple online search (if one was written). Most funeral homes and cremation providers publish obituaries on their websites. Older obituaries are becoming increasingly easier to find online. Search old newspapers or genealogy sites.

The Bureau of Vital Statistics offers walk-in or mail-in services. To save time, download and complete the forms you need. The Bureau of Vital Statistics may be reached at (904) 359-6900, ext. 9000.

Florida Death Records Search - County Office

Florida Perform a free Florida public death records search, including death certificates, death indexes, deceased records, death registers & registries, obituaries, and death notices.

As funeral homes across America post obituaries to their respective funeral home website, The Obituary App organizes them all into particular cities. Now, a user can look at all the obituaries posted by multiple funeral homes in one place.

Jot down the key facts first

First, you'll want to include the person's name, birth place, age, date of death, location and cause of death (optional). From there, Shain says you should go on to include other biographical staples such as “whether they got married, had kids, [details of] their careers and retirement.”

To be clear, obituaries are protected by copyright. They are creative works of expression that are fixed into a tangible medium of expression. Both the text and the images that make up an obituary are protected by copyright (even if the facts and information are not).

How do I find an obituary for a specific person on Ancestry? ›

With a name and general publication date, you can start searching obituary records like the Newspapers.com Obituary Index: 1800s to current on Ancestry now.

In most cases, you're likely to hear the news directly from close family or friends of the deceased. If not, you may find out through an announcement in the local paper. There are also online platforms that publish details of recent deaths.

About U.S., Obituary Collection, 1930-Current. This collection is an index of information taken from online obituaries published in the United States between 1930 and the current year. Many of the obituaries were found on funeral home websites, and the index may include links to the original sources.

When you are listing a relative, make sure to include their first name, their spouse's first name in parenthesis and then their last name. It should look something like this: “JoAnne leaves behind her children Doug (Susan) Smith, Joe (Dianne) Smith, and Sarah (Mark) Perry.”

Now that you know you don't have a legal requirement to post an obituary, you may be wondering whether or not you have to publish one at all. The short answer is no. You are under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to publish or post an obituary after someone passes away.

Death certificates are public record without cause of death. Anyone may obtain certified copies without the cause of death information. The cause of death becomes public information after 50 years from the date of death. By Florida law, the cause of death is considered confidential prior to that time.

In most cases, the funeral home, cremation service or mortuary will handle the process of preparing and filing the death certificate. However, there may be some circ*mstances in which you need to obtain a copy of a death certificate of a loved one.