Illinois Obituaries

Our collection of Illinois obituaries is expanded regularly as volunteer contributors transcribe citations. You can help other researchers by taking a few minutes each day to pick up your local or county paper and enter citations for the obituaries. We also have many volunteers that transcribe obituary information from the newspaper archives at their local library.

Search by Name

Enter a last name (i.e. surname) and search through the Illinois newspapers citations already indexed.

Or, if you would like to contribute obituaries, first locate your local or county newspaper listing in the directory.

Why Citations? Where's The Rest of the Obit?

To avoid violating the copyright protection exercised by many newspapers over complete obituaries, our database simply cites the individual, date of death, age at death, newspaper name, date of paper and page of citation. We attach a link to the newspaper website (when available) so you can contact them directly to obtain the full obituary.

Newspaper Directory

Browse through our listing of Illinois newspapers and access their online obituary archives. Included in our directory are highlights of genealogy columns published in each paper. To add an obituary citation, locate the newspaper listing and then click on "Add Obituary".

Additional Illinois Sources