Ohio Obituaries

Ohio has a statewide obituary index with millions of entries, the Ohio Obituary Index at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library. Paired with the digitized papers on Ohio Memory and Chronicling America, it makes Ohio one of the easiest states for obituary research.

Recent Ohio 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 Ohio are:

• Columbus Dispatch
• Plain Dealer / Cleveland.com
• Cincinnati Enquirer
• Akron Beacon Journal
• Toledo Blade
• Dayton Daily News

Legacy.com’s Ohio 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.

Ohio obituaries in historic newspapers

The Centinel of the North-Western Territory, printed in Cincinnati in 1793, was the first newspaper in the Northwest Territory. Cincinnati became the region’s publishing center, with a large German-language press, including the Cincinnati Volksfreund and the Catholic Wahrheitsfreund, that reported deaths in German-speaking families for decades.

Every Ohio county seat supported weekly papers through the 1800s, and the industrial cities of Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, Akron and Youngstown added large dailies and Hungarian, Slovenian, Polish and other immigrant papers. Obituaries in Ohio weeklies often traced a family back to its arrival from Pennsylvania, Virginia or New England.

The Ohio Obituary Index began as an index to obituaries in Sandusky County papers and grew, with the help of libraries and volunteers across the state, into an index covering papers from most Ohio counties. Each entry tells you which paper and date to look up, so you can find the full obituary on microfilm or in a digitized archive.

Where to find older Ohio obituaries

Digitized Ohio newspapers

• Ohio Memory — Digitized Ohio newspapers and records from the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio.

Obituary and death indexes

• Ohio Obituary Index, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library — Millions of index entries for obituaries in Ohio newspapers, from libraries statewide.
• Ohio Death Records, 1908–1953 (FamilySearch) — Free index and images of Ohio death certificates.

Archives and libraries

• Death records, Ohio History Connection — Ohio's state archives, with older state death certificates and newspaper microfilm in Columbus.
• Ohio Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to Ohio 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.

Ohio death records

Ohio death certificates are public: anyone can order a copy from ODH or any local health department. Ohio death certificates from 1908 to the 1950s are indexed free on FamilySearch, and the Ohio History Connection holds older state death records. See also our guide to Ohio public records.

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

Tips for finding an obituary in Ohio

• Start with the Ohio Obituary Index. The Hayes Presidential Library indexes millions of obituaries from Ohio libraries.
• Ohio records are open. Anyone can order an Ohio death certificate from any local health department.
• Check Pennsylvania and Kentucky papers. Border-county deaths often ran in Pittsburgh, Wheeling or Kentucky papers.
• 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