California Obituaries

California’s first newspaper appeared in 1846, and the gold rush soon made San Francisco one of the country’s busiest newspaper cities. The free California Digital Newspaper Collection and the California Death Index are the two main starting points.

Recent California obituaries (2000 to today)

Most obituaries published since about 2000 are online. Daily papers post paid death notices and family-written obituaries in an Obituaries section, usually hosted by Legacy.com, and keep them online with a guest book. The largest daily papers in California are:

• Los Angeles Times
• San Francisco Chronicle
• San Diego Union-Tribune
• Sacramento Bee
• Orange County Register
• Mercury News (San Jose)
• Fresno Bee

Legacy.com’s California page searches the obituaries of most of these papers and many smaller ones at once. Funeral homes also post obituaries on their own websites, often before the newspaper does and sometimes instead of it: search the person’s name with the town and “obituary” or “funeral home.” For obituaries no longer online, ask your public or state library: many offer NewsBank or ProQuest databases with the full text of recent newspapers, free with a library card.

California obituaries in historic newspapers

The Californian was printed in Monterey in 1846, just after the United States took control, and moved to San Francisco the next year, where it reported the discovery of gold. During the gold rush, papers in San Francisco, Sacramento and the mining camps printed death notices for miners whose families were thousands of miles away, often with a line asking eastern papers to copy the notice.

California had one of the most diverse presses in the country. Spanish-language papers such as Los Angeles’ El Clamor Público (1855) served Californio families, and Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Armenian and other immigrant papers recorded deaths in their communities. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed many city records, which makes newspapers especially important for deaths before then.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection, run by the University of California, Riverside, holds millions of free digitized pages from 1846 to the present. The California Death Index for 1940 to 1997 is free on FamilySearch.

Where to find older California obituaries

Digitized California newspapers

• California Digital Newspaper Collection — Free digitized California newspapers from 1846 to the present.

Obituary and death indexes

• California Death Index, 1940–1997 (FamilySearch) — Free statewide index of California deaths, useful for finding the date and county to search.

Archives and libraries

• Genealogy, Los Angeles Public Library — LAPL’s genealogy research guide, including newspaper and obituary resources.
• San Francisco Public Library — San Francisco newspaper microfilm and history center.
• County recorders and clerks (CDPH list) — Order recent California death certificates from the county where the death happened.
• California Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to California newspaper archives, indexes and microfilm, with local links.

Also search the nationwide archives: Chronicling America, FamilySearch, Find a Grave, Newspapers.com. See all nationwide obituary resources.

California death records

In California anyone can order an informational copy of a death certificate; certified copies go to family and authorized people. For recent deaths, the county recorder in the county of death is usually faster than CDPH. See also our guide to California public records.

• California Department of Public Health, Vital Records — the office that issues California death certificates, with ordering instructions and fees.
• Where to Write for Vital Records: California — the CDC’s summary of where to order, current fees and which years the office holds.
• California Vital Records, FamilySearch Research Wiki — free death indexes and certificate collections, with the years each covers.

Tips for finding an obituary in California

• Use the Death Index for dates. The California Death Index, 1940–1997, gives date and county of death, and later indexes cover deaths into the 2000s.
• Order locally for recent deaths. County recorders usually issue death certificates faster than the state office in Sacramento.
• Search ethnic papers. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and other community papers, many on CDNC, carried notices that English dailies did not.
• Look beyond the word “obituary.” Older papers reported deaths under headings like “Died,” “Deaths,” local news and personals columns, funeral notices and cards of thanks, and often listed married women under the husband’s name (“Mrs. John Smith”). See death notices vs. obituaries.

Common questions