Indiana Obituaries

Indiana’s first newspaper appeared in 1804, and the Indiana State Library holds the largest collection of Indiana newspapers in the world. Its free Hoosier State Chronicles site and the Allen County Public Library’s obituary index cover a large share of Indiana deaths.

Recent Indiana 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 Indiana are:

• Indianapolis Star
• Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne)
• South Bend Tribune
• Evansville Courier & Press
• Times of Northwest Indiana
• Herald-Times (Bloomington)

Legacy.com’s Indiana 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.

Indiana obituaries in historic newspapers

Elihu Stout printed the Indiana Gazette in Vincennes, the territorial capital, in 1804. Early notices were brief, but by the mid-1800s county weeklies across Indiana ran detailed obituaries, often written by a minister and including the deceased’s religious experience and the names of surviving children.

Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville and the steel and auto towns of the north grew large dailies in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and German-language papers were published in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville. The Indiana State Library has published a guide to searching Indiana newspapers specifically for death notices and obituaries.

The Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, one of the largest genealogy libraries in the country, keeps a two-part obituary index with hundreds of thousands of entries. Many other Indiana public libraries maintain their own local obituary indexes.

Where to find older Indiana obituaries

Digitized Indiana newspapers

• Hoosier State Chronicles, Indiana State Library — Free digitized Indiana newspapers, searchable from anywhere.

Obituary and death indexes

• Obituary Index, Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center — Index of more than 786,000 obituaries in Fort Wayne and Allen County papers, 1837 to 2026, with copies available.

Archives and libraries

• Searching for death notices in Indiana newspapers — Indiana State Library guide to finding obituaries in its newspaper collection.
• Indiana Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to Indiana 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.

Indiana death records

Indiana death certificates are restricted to family and others with a direct interest; anyone can get a genealogy copy of an older record. Death certificates from 1899 to about 75 years ago are at the Indiana State Archives and are also indexed on FamilySearch and Ancestry.

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

Tips for finding an obituary in Indiana

• Use the Allen County index. The Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne indexes local obituaries back to 1837.
• Look for death certificates on FamilySearch. Indiana death certificates from 1899 are indexed online, giving the date and county.
• Ask the Indiana State Library. Its newspaper collection and death-notice guide cover papers from every county.
• 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