Newspaper Extraction Form For Death, Burial and Obituary Notices

Last week I posted an article about the differences between death, burial and obituary notices. This week I would like to share the extraction form I have designed just for these types of notices. The idea for my form was inspired by a post from Robin Foster author of Saving Stories. Robin posted a Newspaper Extraction Form on her blog which was shared by Dear Myrtle on Facebook and how I came to find Robin's blog.

I was excited to see Robin's form as I had recently renewed my Genealogy Bank subscription. Her form is great but I wanted something more specific for the death, burial and obituary notices I have been finding. I also wanted to be sure I extracted very specific information from the notices.

Depending on what collection you find the notice of your ancestors death in at GenealogyBank.com, for example you may have an image of the actual newspaper notice for older death, burial and obituary notices prior to 1977. If this is what you find then you have three options to save it, (1) you can capture the image and attach it to the profile of person in your genealogy database; (2) you can save it to your "My Folder at Genealogy Bank or (3) you can down load the whole page in a pdf document. 

However, in the recent obituary collection for notices after 1977 at Genealogy Bank, you may only find a transcription of the obituary itself. Of course, your can print the obituary but you also have the option of saving it to your "My Folder" option at GenealogyBank. 

Now if you are an "all access" member with Ancestry.com then you have access to Newspapers.com. With Newspapers.com you have the following choices for saving your notices, (1) use their clipping tool, (2) you can print/save either the entire page or a specific section, (3) you can email it (I generally email it to myself) and (4) save the page directly to your ancestor's profile in Ancestry.com.

These are the two major websites that I currently use for newspapers. I know that there others by Miriam Robbins at Online Historical Newspapers Website and Kenneth R Marks at The Ancestor Hunt but so far I have not thoroughly explored these great websites.

Here is what I am looking for when I am writing an extraction from a death, burial and/or obituary notice:

• Name of the Deceased
• Newspaper Details
• Type of Notice
• Death
• Burial
• Obituary
• Online image
• Transcription only
• Date published
• Volume
• Page
• Column
• Website address
• Details of the service
• Date & Place of Funeral
• Date & Place of Burial
• Name of Cemetery
• Date of Visitation, if applicable
• Surviving family listed
• Predeceased family listed
• Memorial requests
• Tragedy (such as drowning, murder, accident, natural disaster)
• Published in different newspapers
• Followup articles
• Written source citation
• Notes
• Format saved as: 
• Screen capture
• Printed version
• PDF file
• Saved to:
• Genealogy database
• Online tree
• Blog (Sunday Obituaries)
• Attached to extraction form

As you can see I am looking for a lot of information from a burial, death or obituary notice. Unfortunately, they are not always so detailed and many of the details I am looking for will not be found in older or historical obituaries. However, newer obituaries can be much more detailed listing occupations, civil and society clubs, education and military service. 

Here is an idea of what my extraction form looks like,

You can get a copy of my Newspaper Extraction Form For Death, Burial and Obituary Notices here. I print this as one sheet front and back.

Sources:

Foster, Robin "Newspaper Extraction Form", Saving Stories. April 2016. (http://robinsavingstories.blogspot.com/p/newspaper-extraction-form.html : 2016)