Be careful using relationships from obituaries as your sole source of information for your database.


Modern obituaries especially may:

  • not mention all children
  • may not distinguish children from step-children
  • may not indicate which spouse was the parents of which children

Any of these things can confuse later genealogists if it is assumed an obituary was entirely correct. This is another reason why a researcher should always source each date and relationship in their database. Every fact entered should have an indication of where that fact was obtained


As far as the obituary, the best bet is to transcribe it exactly as it was written (or scan it) and look for other materials to back it up. If errors are discovered, they could be annotated as such at the end of your transcription.

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