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Omaha World-Herald Obituaries in Omaha, Nebraska

Uncovering your family history can be difficult. Omaha World-Herald obits are an excellent source of information about those long-lost family members in Omaha, Nebraska.

With the Omaha World-Herald obituary archives being one of the leading sources for uncovering your history in Nebraska, it's important to know how to perform a Omaha World-Herald obituary search to access this wealth of research from newspapers all across the country.

Our online database enables you to perform searches without the hassle of performing manual searches through old records.

Some of the most beneficial reasons to look into Omaha World-Herald local obituaries include:

  • Uncover the branches of your family tree.
  • Connect with extended family members.
  • Discover the stories of your ancestors.

Explore the comprehensive records in our online database, and you'll gain access to almost 150 years of local history.

Plus, 95% of GenealogyBank records cannot be found through any other online services.

How to Search Omaha World-Herald Obituary Archives

Looking up Omaha World-Herald obituaries in Nebraska doesn't have to be difficult. Whether you're trying to understand where you come from for the first time or you're looking to add some detail to a family tree, it couldn't be easier to perform a Omaha World-Herald obituary search.

All you have to do to get started is enter the last name of a chosen relative and press the “Search” button. It’s an excellent launching point for further research into those elusive relatives.

You can also get some additional guidance by downloading the free “Tips for Searching Titles” guide.

If you’re trying to get more information on a specific relative, follow these steps to perform an advanced search of the Omaha World-Herald obituary archives.

  • Step One – Begin by entering the first and last names of your relative. You’ll get more accurate results if you also have a middle name. Our search results will present you with close match obituaries.
  • Step Two – Add a keyword, such as a school or a town, to narrow your search results.
  • Step Three – Exclude keywords to avoid uncovering obituaries unrelated to your family tree.
  • Step Four – Include a year range. With almost 150 years of history, the chances are your ancestors share the same name as someone else’s ancestor.
  • Step Five – Get different results by changing the sorting options. You can order your results by showing the best matches, newest entries, and oldest entries.

Tips for a Successful Omaha World-Herald Obituary Search

Genealogy research can be challenging as many records are incomplete or filled with mistakes. For a successful Omaha World-Herald obituary search, it’s good to have multiple strategies at your disposal to ensure you get the correct relative.

Most older obituaries will include some pieces of family information. Obituaries can be used to uncover information about other relatives or to confirm that you have the right person in Omaha, Nebraska.

For a successful search of Omaha World-Herald obituaries, follow these tips:

  • Use information from more recent ancestors to find older relatives.
  • Try searching by initials. Many old Omaha World-Herald obits used initials instead of full names.
  • Are you looking for a female relative? Try searching for their husband’s name.
  • Perform searches by using common misspellings. TITLE editors often didn’t fact-check spellings in the past.

By implementing these strategies, you can go deeper with your research and uncover the ancestors you never knew you had. It’s also ideal for fact-checking, as many obituaries weren’t necessarily created with 100% accuracy.

Why are obituaries so valuable for genealogy?

Omaha Obituaries can help provide you with a snapshot of a person’s family history and life if they are from the Omaha, Nebraska area. Omaha World Herald Obituaries usually mention the person’s full name, place of death, cause of death, surviving family members, and profession. This is a wealth of information that provides a glimpse back in time. Likewise, this can also act as a springboard for further research. With that in mind, World Herald obituaries are an essential starting point for conducting genealogical research if you’re a Nebraska native or if your family comes from this state. Read More

Obituaries throughout history

Obituaries have been with us since ancient Rome, with death notices being part of the Acta Diruna, or “daily events.” Obituaries were usually brief, since before the invention of Linotype every letter in a newspaper had to be set by hand. As such, most obituaries during this time were set as simple announcements and places of deaths. They also included a name and description of how the death occurred.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the deaths of children were much more common. These were exceptions to the brief obituaries of the time. The deaths of children were often embellished with heartfelt poetry. During the civil war era, as death notices exploded, obituary pages became spaces of public mourning, in print, for communities.

How to search obituaries online

Searching for “Obituaries Omaha NE” in Google doesn’t have to be frustrating. Searching for OWH obits through sites like GenealogyBank can get you the information you need to help with your family research.

Necessary information to find a particular Omaha NE obits will usually include first name, middle initial and last name, date of death, location, and sometimes an event-based keyword. Since obituary listings can be extensive, a relevant keyword that relates to either the cause of death or some other factor (such as prior military service) will be essential. Different web sites will often have different user interfaces, but the UI at GenealogyBank has fields for date ranges, and which newspaper you wish to search. Your obituary search can even include wildcard characters in names when searching through Omaha World Herald obits listings.

What to look for in World Herald obituaries

Sites such as Ancestry.com make use of algorithms that immediately parse obituary information. Since the 1930s, obituaries follow a 4-part format – death announcement, biography, survived by section, and funeral information. This holds true for nearly all obituary listings, including Nebraska obituaries published since the 1930s.

If you’re building out your family tree using sites that have Omaha World Herald Obits information, it’s important to get the spouses’ name, the names of the children, and grandchildren as well. This is what makes Omaha World Herald Obits such great tools for genealogical research – obituaries do most of the work in terms of starting research. By following a string of related obituaries, an entire family tree and historical journey can be constructed. Birth and death dates can help you discover chains of lineage between family members, and these can be found in World Herald obits.

Using index cards or a simple database program, you can note these important details for further in-depth research at the library or add them to the family tree that you construct.

What can obituary information be used for?

In addition to understanding the historical journey of families, obituary information can be hugely useful in retrieving historical information about family illnesses, immigration patterns, residency, and presence in historical events. Obituary information can also be vital for tracking down lost relatives. The useful nature of obituary information for genealogical work can’t be understated. Read More

Genealogy research and obituary information examples

Let’s take the example of an imaginary John W Jones, from Omaha, Nebraska. Details have been fictionalized for this particular listing.

His obituary might read like this:

Jones, John W.

February 7, 1954 - September 3, 2018

Preceded in death by parents, Mark and Janice, and sister Susan Blake. Survived by wife Catherine; daughters, Louise, and Caroline Jones; 1 brother; and 2 sisters. Mr. Jones passed from cardiac arrest in his sleep at home.

Private Family Services.

GRACE REST FUNERAL HOME

996 Elm Street | (402) 555-5555 | www.gracerestfuneral.com

From this listing, we know the names of John’s parents (Mark and Janice) and that they were deceased by the time of John’s death, and that his sister Susan Blake is deceased as well. His wife, Catherine Jones, and daughters Louise and Caroline are still alive. Finally, we know that he has one brother and two sisters who are not detailed in the obituary. We also learn the cause of death - a heart attack while asleep.

This is a considerable amount of information that can be used to fill in a family tree. Further use of a database like the World Herald listings at GenealogyBank can be used to fill in the death dates and locations for John’s deceased relatives. In addition, checking things like newspaper morgues from those eras can reveal fascinating details about the lives people lived.

How to Find Nebraska Death Notices in the Omaha World-Herald

Finding death notices in the Omaha World-Herald can be another vital source of genealogical research. But what’s the difference between a death notice and an obituary?

Although some people use the terms interchangeably, they’re actually two different things. Obituaries describe the person, who they are, and what they did in their lives. Death notices, on the other hand, are formalized reports of someone’s death in the local news.

Family members would have published death notices in the Omaha World-Herald to detail the person’s name, age, residence, work history, and any information about the funeral service. As family members typically wrote these, they tend to be relatively accurate.

Death notices can help extract more information about an ancestor and uncover their place of burial. So, how do you look up local death notices and sift through hundreds of years’ worth of history? If you want to find death notices alongside Omaha World-Herald obits, follow these tips:

  • Include Boolean operators and proximity search techniques.
  • Use multiple collections to fact-check any found records.
  • Connect other family members mentioned in the death notice to confirm whole sections of your family tree.

The Omaha World-Herald records are invaluable sources of historical information about local people. We make it easy for you to search, discover, and share your family’s untold story. Get started with GenealogyBank and start making connections today.

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Trace your family history with the GenealogyBank database to begin growing your family tree.

Do you want to learn even more about unlocking your history? Visit the GenealogyBank Learning Center for tips and inspiration.