Obituary Collection - Family History & Genealogy Message Board

copyright laws

nanablue2004 — 5 Aug 2006 6:59:50 GMT

I was going to post a obit today for someone's query and when I went to the Houston Chronicle Obit Archives I noticed that they had a very strict copyright against posting in anyway on the internet ...etc..

What do you think about this and is this the standard at all newspapers...Want to help but don't want trouble...

Balaban, Rudolph, death Apr. 7, 1949 Placer Co. California

dascanyonlake — 8 Apr 2008 8:48:07 GMT

Born Bohemia, Austria, Feb 14, 1876, immigrated 1872 to Nebraska. Married and divorced. If possible would like the obituary record and divorce record.

I appreciate any help on these subjects.

Los Aneles, Calif obituary

haydidi — 16 Oct 2008 4:18:17 GMT

Looking for an obituary in newspaper for

Loka Marie Holt
Born: 23 Mar 1893
Died: 31 Jan 1985
Place of death: Los Angeles, Calif

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Preferred Format for Obit Uploads to an Ancestry Family Tree??

mfsinback1 — 19 Jul 2008 11:56:46 GMT

Would be interested in Pros and Cons for formating uploads of scanned newspaper obits to my family tree on Ancestry.

I have two choices:
1. Scan as a JPG and upload as a photo.
2. Scan as a PDF and upload as a story document.

Hopefully, both would be searchable. I feel the PDF would be more useful/flexible to the recepient but I have noticed that the new Ancestry Home Page has broken links when displaying recently added content that are PDF files.

Unknown child

AutumnTObuchowskiSmith — 9 May 2008 7:54:23 GMT

This site says that my great grandma had three children. Betty my grandmother and Kathy who died a year after she was born. but they also say she had a son named Lennie Charles Blackmer on 28 th Feb 1937 and died that same day. It makes sence because my greatgrand mothers fathers name was Lennie.

My family has no idea who this boy could be. There has never been any thing said about him and I can not find a death certificate. Is it possibel there is a mixup?

Problems with past Houston Chronicle Obits

makz3d — 9 Feb 2005 10:38:45 GMT

I need the obituary information for Kelly Nicole Sharp who died 6/22/2004. According to a search at the Houston Chronicle website there is at least a notice in the paper on the 25th of June.

Do an Obit search using only the Obituary Date of 6/26/2004 for Houston Chronicle. You'll get 18 matches. Note that the 18 matches cover only through the letter H for the deceased's name.

Click to view the obit of Chantell Carmouche Adams. For the resulting page you will note that although the search was for the 26th the Death Notices and Guest Books are for 6/25/2004 and listed are the results for Page 1 of 3. If I click on the 2 or 3 at the bottom, click to Show anything other then 25, or click to view Notice Headings I get Page 1 of 1 with one obit for Ferguson, Betty Lee.

I I have clicked different things to see obits on page 2 and 3 from the Houston Chronicle and I cannot get any obit information for anyone whose name begins with a letter after H in the alphabet.

I don't want to get the obit from the Houston Chronicle as they want to charge me and I'm already paying Ancestry.com to access the obituaries through the Obituary Collection.

Can this be fixed. Someone from Ancestry please reply.

Thank you, Kathy

What names to include

GordonGrening — 5 Nov 2007 1:12:56 GMT

When one posts an obit, should one include the name of the minister/priest/rabbi, etc. who conducted the service in the list of surnames? What about the name of the funeral home?

Personally, I think one should include the minister to help people searching for a particular family name. This would help them find where a relative was assigned at a particular time.

Looking for Sarah Seal - Death Records

LyndaJSeal — 18 Sep 2007 7:18:48 GMT

Hi all I'm searching through the death records looking for Sarah Seal who was born in 1840 but I cannot find her death record it keeps coming up with just 1800 or early 1900 records and I can't find her why is it not showing me later records?

Thanks

Lynda

Cemetery Search

cindyparker29 — 28 Aug 2007 3:29:15 GMT

I am looking for "Martha (Hooser) Harris" Born 1822 in Mo. I need Date of Death & Cemetery Location. Her husband was James B. Harris. They settled in Texas abt 1848 from Missouri. Resided Shelby,co.,Cameron,co.,then Milam Co, in Rockdale, Tx till 1876. Then San Saba, Tx. by 1880. Moved to Grayson Co,in Denison,Tx. in 1882. I think Martha died while they were in San Saba or after 1880. Any Information on her or the Harris Family will be greatly appreciated.!

Cemetery Search

cindyparker29 — 28 Aug 2007 3:14:45 GMT

I am working on My Family Tree & have run into a Dead End. I am trying to find out Info on: The James B. Harris Family who came to Texas in 1849 & first settled in Shelby Co., then Cameron Co., then Milam Co.> Town of Rockdale, Tx. His wife was Martha Hooser. They had abt 16 children. Their daughter Susan Ana Harris B.4/18/1853 & D.4/29/1880, married Andrew J. Monroe. He worked on their Ranch. They had 6 children. Then she died. She is not in the 1880 Census,but Andrew is listed in Coleman Co., as a Widower with 6 kids. Need Info where she was buried/cemetery/.

Obituary Hunter

Lyndy113 — 18 Mar 2007 4:42:06 GMT

Is the My Alerts/Obituary Hunter working for anyone? I've not had any results for quite a while. I have family names listed that use 2 pages...I am able to access the names on the first page, but get an error message when I try to go to page two. My email to customer support received a reply that really did not cover my question (what else is new). On February 2nd I called and asked about the My Alerts/obit feature. I was put on hold and told that they reported it. Just wondering if anyone else is having problems.

Finding someone from 1/10/2003 (date of death)

jenniferl1993 — 1 Oct 2004 12:32:27 GMT

I'm trying to find out how to check certificates of death of this date for females, between 40-50 years of age.

Surname is not know, so I will need to search via the date of death. How is this done, please.

US Obituary Collection gave wrong date

flomuse — 12 Mar 2007 1:11:18 GMT

Many times, the full obit page does not load.

So, we are left with the summary given by Ancestry. It should be better than nothing, right ?

WRONG.

I thought these dates were weird - died 1961 ???

Charles H. Dunkelberger
Age at Death: 80
Birth Date: abt 1881
Death Date: 21 Jun 1961
Newspaper Title: Reading Times/Reading Eagle [PA]
Obituary Publication Date: 8 Dec 2003

I was lucky: the Reading Eagle pages load - so I know that the summary above was bogus:

Birth Date: abt 1881 NO: abt 1923
Death Date: 21 Jun 1961 NO: 4 DEC 2003

the obit says: his wife died in 1961.

I can now throw away all the obits I have collected where the full original obit is not given.

Thank you again, Ancestry.

US Obituary Collection gave wrong newspaper

flomuse — 12 Mar 2007 12:26:34 GMT

United States Obituary Collection

I was already annoyed that over half of pages gave me "Sorry, this cached page is not available. ", I got ever more annoyed when I noticed a case where it was the wrong newspaper:

my search was "Haas - PA"

understandably, I found newspapers in FL, other in OH [mention of born of PA, or relatives in PA],....

Then I was quite surprised by this one:

Newspaper Title: Daily News-Record
Newspaper Location: Harrisonburg, VA
Obituary Publication Date: 4 Aug 2005

... Born in Lancaster...., died in Pottsville.... he worked in the "Haas Amish Hat Store ..... for 73 years.".

A Amish store worker mentioned in a Harrisonburg, VA newspaper ???

Did he retired there ? did he have relatives in VA ? did he go in vacation once in VA, maybe ?

None of the above. NOWHERE in that obit can I see mention of other places but PA (and one FL).

So, I checked directly the Daily News-Record (Harrisonburg, VA) , where they state:
"dates in archive: 6/10/1993-Current"

search down to one single word "Haas". [ I found a Ethel Haas in 2003. ] . That's it.

No "Obituary Publication Date: 4 Aug 2005". ZERO.

I could be wrong - my only explanation: ANCESTRY sold me the wrong paper.

This was my FIRST visit to the "United States Obituary Collection".
From that I deduct that this is not the only such error in there.

strange matches

jmasoner4859 — 12 Nov 2006 12:49:56 GMT

Is anyone else having trouble with the obituary database?

I am getting some strange matches when I do a search. I do a surname search, exact match. On some of the matches the surname is not even listed at all in the obituary nor is it found anywhere on the page that comes up.

Tried searching using the surname as family member mentioned--again matches that do not even come close to having the surname listed.

Also the number of hits changes when I change pages. For example when I search from Ancestry's main page then click on obituary database it shows something like 126 hits. First page shows 121 hits, then go to another page and the number changes again.

Apparently there are some sort of gremlins in the search engine.

Obituary Collection

dh_2000 — 3 Oct 2006 3:45:42 GMT

The Virgil S. Schultz obituary is listed 271 times! Seems to me that one listing should be sufficient unless there are multiple sources.

Obituary is Fixed

makz3d — 18 Oct 2005 12:39:10 GMT

Rae and all,

Just checked the Obituary Collection and the database seems to be fixed. Didn't receive any Cache messages.

Kathy

Obituary's

RaeBreckenridge — 28 Oct 2006 12:31:02 GMT

I'm trying to look through some obits and I am recieving this message.
Sorry, this cached page is not available.
I have tried several different ones. Anyone else having this problem? Maybe they are just working on it.
Rae

Obit Collection acting Weird!!

meinstammbaum — 17 Oct 2005 3:15:57 GMT

I hadn't checked the Oituary Collection at Ancestry for my most common surmanes for awhile...so, I thought I would do that this morning and every one that I tried to look at it tells me ...."Sorry, this cached page is not available. "
I could understand it if it were one or two of them....BUT it was the whole page....

I MEAN EVERY ONE OF THEM....Some that I KNOW I looked at about a month ago....and printed out at that time!!

Is there a New Reader I need to download, OR is there a temporary glitch in the system or what!!!!

Is this message board working?

makz3d — 9 Feb 2005 2:47:33 GMT

The reason I posted the previous message is because I've tried 7 times to post a message and I get the "The page cannot be displayed" screen. So I just put test for the previous message to see if I still couldn't post.

I've tried an 8th time to post my message but it will not go through. I'm thinking maybe it's because I've included the URL from 3 Ancestry screens to show what the problem is. I guess I'll have to wait for a reply from Support.

Kathy

Is anyone getting answers?

Lyndy113 — 15 Mar 2005 10:41:23 GMT

Is anyone getting personal email answers to these problems recently posted on the Obit Collection? It's very obvious that no response is coming forth on the board from anyone. I'm curious to know if someone is working on this database to make it a little easier for subscribers to find correct obits located where they are supposed to be.

Nancy

duplicate Obituary Hunter results

xandervan — 18 Feb 2006 3:04:17 GMT

Today I received the following 6 "hits":

Neil L. Imel 84 Hutchinson, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Neil L. Imel Dodge City, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Neil L. Imel 84 1921* 2/24/2005 Fort Dodge Hutchinson, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Neil L. Imel 84 1/21/1921 2/24/2005 George Hutchinson, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Neil L. Imel Dodge City, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Neil L. Imel 84 1/21/1921 2/24/2005 George Dodge City, KS, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Links no's 3 & 4 take you to the same identical newspaper page; no's 5 & 7 do the same. Why the duplicate hits?

Anyone related to Little League in Texas?

makz3d — 10 Mar 2005 10:33:05 GMT

In Checking the Brenham Banner Press for May 14, 2004 there are 13 Obituary listings for Little League. I've pasted the information below. These 13 represent 8 people.

I know that Ancestry doesn't review the obituaries for the index but can't they do something to have a better quality index? These are 8 people that will not be found in a search because those interested wouldn't know they were actually Little League.

Kathy

Little League 43 abt 1961 May/1/2004 Kelvin Brenham, TX, US
Little League 43 abt 1961 May/1/2004 Blanche Johnson Brenham, TX, US
Little League Lonnie Ray Williams Brenham, TX, US
Little League 79 Mar/22/1925 May/25/2004 Clayton Morris Brenham, TX, US
Little League 77 abt 1927 May/25/2004 Robert Tucker Brenham, TX, US
Little League 77 abt 1927 May/25/2004 Robert Tucker Brenham, TX, US
Little League 79 Mar/22/1925 May/25/2004 Clayton Morris Brenham, TX, US
Little League 81 Ernest Brenham, TX, US
Little League 53 abt 1951 May/25/2004 Leona Williams Brenham, TX, US
Little League 58 Carolyn Meador Brenham, TX, US
Little League 58 Carolyn Meador Brenham, TX, US
Little League 53 abt 1951 May/25/2004 Leona Williams Brenham, TX, US
Little League 81 Ernest Brenham, TX, US

Incorrect newspaper links from Obituary Hunter

xandervan — 18 Feb 2006 3:04:17 GMT

Today I received the following 3 "hits:

Cynthia Kay Imel 61 Judy Correll Richmond, IN, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Cynthia Kay Imel 61 Judy Correll Indianapolis, IN, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Cynthia Kay Imel 61 Judy Correll Lafayette, IN, US
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redirect.asp?targetid=3755&so...

Link #1 should be to the Richmond Palladium-Item newspaper.

Link #3 should be to the Lafayette Journal-Courier newspaper.

ALL THREE links go to the Indianapolis Star.

Not receiving notifications

xandervan — 18 Feb 2006 3:04:17 GMT

I have not received any obituary hunter notifications since September 18, 2004. Is there a problem?

HELP: with Obituaries

mommyxthree — 18 Sep 2005 5:30:17 GMT

Does Ancester.com have OLD obituaries in the data banks??
And how do I find the? Please help!

Obituary Collection

Pat — 30 Apr 2004 9:57:14 GMT

Does the "Obituary Collection" plan on listing "The Sun Herald" newpaper, Harrison County, Biloxi, MS & The "Mobile Register" newspaper, Mobile County, Mobile, AL on its list of searchable newspapers? These are the two largest newspapers on the MS & AL gulf coast. Why are they not included already?
thanks, pat

UPDATE: AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY INPUT?

Lyndy113 — 13 Sep 2004 8:30:09 GMT

I've waited to see if a posting was made to show that the problem I was having had been solved. I am not sure what the exact problem was, but received the following email from Rachael on 2/17/2004:

Hi Nancy,

Just to keep you in the loop, my development team has been monitoring your obituary emails for the past week and have found nothing suspicious. They have a theory that while your email was gathering the results, we updated our index for Obituaries - which would result in a large number of errors in the Obituary Hunter. They have put in safeguards this week to ensure that does not happen again.

They want to keep monitoring your emails for another 2 weeks. In the meantime, feel free to update them if you'd like. Please email me if you get another strange email - my development team will also keep me in the loop if they notice any other odd emails.

I will update the message board to communicate this to the other users.

Have a good week,

Rachael

My Obituary Hunter is working fine and I am pleased that the problem was solved. The response time in solving my problem was very satisfactory. After reading some of the other boards and the problems individuals are having, I felt that it was important to let people know that my problem was fixed and I wasn't left "hanging".

Thanks Rachael.......

Nancy

Obituary Collection Site

Lyndy113 — 13 Sep 2004 8:30:09 GMT

This morning while doing a search for some of my surnames in the Obituary Collection I was directed by one name linked to an obituary in the Boston Globe. Because the date was over 30 days I had to use the archives to search from the site I was directed to. When I found the name I found that I had to "subscribe" and pay to access the obituary. I haven't had to do this with other names...has anyone else had this problem? I can find no place to contact technical support to talk with someone to find out if I'm doing something wrong or if I actually have to pay to access the obituary. It's not that way with the other papers I've found obituaries in while searching in this Obituary Collection.

Another error - is anyone reading these?

FHardy — 3 Feb 2004 6:56:14 GMT

Vondel L. Smith 78* 9/6/1923 6/18/2002 Verna Thornbrugh Seminole, OK, US

There is no "Vondel L. Smith" death. Vondel L. Smith is the name of the FUNERAL HOME, and is referenced in dozens, if not thousands, of obituaries.

Come on, guys. Get a grip.

AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY INPUT?

Lyndy113 — 13 Sep 2004 8:30:09 GMT

Within the past day or two I entered information into the Obituary Hunter page. I entered Sargent - VT and Sargent - MA. Imagine my surprise when an email arrived announcing that 698 new "hits" on my Sargent obit request in my email inbox this morning. As I clicked on the first name "found" in Santa Cruz, CA....there was no reference to the name Sargent anywhere!!! There was reference to the person living in MA at some point in time and a stepdaughter residing in MA. As I scrolled through some of the names at random I clicked on some of them. Reference to MA was the only connection...still no Sargent name. Am I not supposed to put in a location to get a "good" hit? It seems rather a waste of time to go through every name just in case one of them may be a "good hit"...especially when so many "hits" are attached to the name I've input. Can someone give me advise on what I'm doing wrong?

Obituary Hunter problems - STAFF please address

Jack — 6 Jan 2004 3:59:01 GMT

What's wrong with this Obituary Hunter report I received today?

Here are 3 new obituaries for XXX surname.
(Report actually contains 2 entries).

Here are 5 new obituaries for YYY surname.
(Report actually contains 2 entries).

Here are 35 new obituaries for ZZZ surname.
(Report actually contains 2 entries).

Here are 49 new obituaries for ABC surname.
(Report actually contains 3 entries).

In addition to the discrepancies between # of names promised, and # of names produced, the report actually contains NO new names that haven't been reported in previous editions of Obituary Hunter.

And finally, the formatting is some feeble attempt at an HTML table, but the data wanders all over the page in no obvious order.

Do you guys ever receive any of your own email? Ever subscribe to your own services? I can't believe that something so sloppy is allowed to go out.