Tennessee Obituaries

For a small fee (which differs whether or not you are a membership card holder), you can use the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library in order to locate an obituary within the index and then have a copy of that document sent to you. The database is available online to check to see if the clipping you desire is indeed available.

The Nashville Public Library contains a massive resource of searchable public records, including Tennessee death notices. You can perform a lookup files occurring from 1964 through 2002 using the index through the organization’s website. The catalog contains the documents occurring after that time. With the information from the database, you can then go to the library and make copies from the microfilm.

The Chattanooga times Free Press is useful to obituary researchers, in that it has a large number of recent records online and immediately available. However, finding those records could prove slightly difficult. Notices are grouped by the day they were published instead of by last name, making it harder to browse to the record you want. However, there is a site-wide search that could make finding what you need much easier.

The Daily News Journal offers a refreshingly convenient approach to finding obituary records. The most recent records are available in an easy access side bar. All other records can be found through a convenient dedicated obituary search that can be fine tuned to a specific time period or widened to include all entries with a certain name. This paper has online records dating back to early 2007.

Obituaries are useful to researchers as records, but they also have a much more personal side. Newspapers like the Elk Valley Times bring that aspect to the forefront, with touching accounts of beloved local citizens. As an added bonus, this means researchers can find lots of detail should they locate a record they need in this newspaper. Older records are archived in terms of the date when they were published.

Recognizing the importance of obituaries, the Knoxville News Sentinel maintains its online records in an admirable format. Recent notices are indexed in a sidebar with thumbnail pictures. For those looking for an older or more specific record, there's also a dedicated search engine that can help locate specific records more easily.

If you're searching for Marshall County death notices, the Tribune has an excellent online archive. Records begin in 2006, and are searchable by month and by name or keyword, both of which are a huge help to would-be researchers. That means that finding the notice you're looking for might be easier than you think.

The Tullahoma News offers online obituaries that are available for public viewing. The most recent records are immediately viewable. Older records can be found by the day they were published, but aren't indexed by last name. Also, there isn't a search option on the website, so knowing the approximate date you're searching is important.