Utah obituaries are used by ethnographers, genealogists, social scientists, and historians to understand condensed details about a person’s life and death. Ogden Standard ob Examiner obituaries provide a brief snapshot into a person’s life and the details of their passing. Since nearly all obits include deceased and surviving family members, obituaries are ideal for building out a family tree. Details on “predeceased” family members (that is, those who have passed on before the subject of the obituary did) will have their own obituaries. This opens the door to tracking down a web of relations over time and discovering familial history.

Obituaries throughout history

Death notices have been a part of history for as long as human culture has existed. The earliest record obits are the acta diurna, or “daily acts” of ancient Rome. These are announcements that were written on pieces of papyrus and included the news of the day as well as death announcements. As printing technology improved, obituaries lengthened, although obituaries by necessity remained short up until the 1860s. An example of this is the obituary of George Washington, which when published in the New York Spectator was only four lines long.

The invention of Linotype and improvements in printing automation allowed for the increase in obituary length. This was also a good business for newspapers, which could sell space for obituaries similarly as they could for regular advertising. Always, those who were more famous or wealthy had longer obituaries. But with the advent of cheap printing, everyone could have a mention in a newspaper.

Obituaries have always represented the values of the times. For example, during the U.S. Civil War, themes of religious sentimentality and patriotism were prevalent on both sides. When young people or children lost their lives, couplets of poetry were used to express grief. The death advertisement sections of newspapers evolved from utilitarian legal announcements to spaces where people could express grief and celebrate lives lived. This is amply demonstrated in Ogden Standard obituaries from various times.

In the current digital age, Standard obituaries have moved online with the decline of print, via newspaper websites and other services. Now, obituaries of good length can be viewed on mobile phones. An example are the Ogden Examiner obituaries that are web page-based.

How to search obituaries online

When you use an obituary finder to search “obituaries Ogden Utah,” you will probably be flooded with pages that have individual obituary listings; this can be overwhelming. However, there is a better way of tracking down Utah obits.

Sites like GenealogyBank can enable you to search Ogden Standard Examiner obituaries from several newspapers at once. Keep in mind, you’ll need these pieces of information:

• Name – first, full middle name, and last
• Date of death or range of dates when the death may have taken place
• Physical location of either the funeral or where the death may have taken place.
• Other miscellaneous info, such as the deceased’s date of birth

The reason why this information is important is that hundreds of people, and thus hundreds of Standard Examiner obituaries, can share the same name. As these names are supplied to newspapers via death certificates, name spelling is exceedingly important. You want to be able to differentiate your subject as much as possible so that you can find their unique death announcement among Ogden obituaries.

This info should include:

• Deceased’s first name, middle name, last name
• Place of death
• Cause of death
• Funeral and interment location
• Predeceased and survivors

This basic information can be used as springboards to other research, for the inevitable visit to the library and newspaper morgue, or when using other online genealogical websites and databases.

What can obituary information be used for?

Obituary information has a wide variety of uses. If you’re building a family health history, writing a book on your family’s history, creating a family tree for your own personal use, or tracking down lost branches of your family, obituaries are amazingly useful. This is because obituaries act as condensed life stories for the deceased. Obituaries are also essential for things like health histories.

Genealogy research and obituary information examples

Here is an example of how you might use an obituary listing to fill in an entry in your family tree. Below is an example of the data that can be drawn from one of several Standard Examiner obits that have been recently published.

Thomas James Nelson was deceased on September 4, 2020. We can determine a number of facts from his obit:

• His date of birth is noted as November 22, 1949, deceased at the age of 72
• He is survived by his wife Theresa, as well as four sons (Thomas Jr, Val, Gene, and Steven) and four daughters (Crystal, Jessica, Dezarae and Myhesha)
• His predeceased relations include his father Jessie, his mother Wonzie, his brother Jessie Nelson Jr and a daughter, Jessica Nelson
• He is said to have several grandchildren, but no number is given
• He is noted to have played basketball and football while in Ogden High School
• He is noted to have been a big science fiction fan, watching movies with his family avidly

As you can see, there is a wealth of information available in obituaries. They can be a vital resource when conducting any family history search.