Indiana Obituary Collections and Indexes in The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library

by Ryan Taylor

Each month additional entries are added to the library’s index of Fort Wayne/Allen County obituaries. Elsewhere in Indiana, there are busy volunteers who clip, copy and index obituaries from local newspapers--making them much more accessible than they were in the days when we had to scroll through the papers on microfilm to find a dead relative.

Two of the busiest are Patricia Dyson and Judith Richter, longtime users of our library. They are currently working on obituaries from four nearby counties, Whitley, Noble, DeKalb and Wells. When they started they produced a volume a year, but Noble County’s 2005 obituaries required three volumes! They kindly supply an every-name index with their works, which means not only the deceased person but all their relations are accessible.

Austin Cox has been working for many years on obituaries from the Winchester and Union City newspapers (Randolph County). As well as current years (1986-2005), he is collecting retrospectively, filling in missing years as he goes. So far, his earliest volume covers 1926-1927. An earlier project extracted wedding and engagement announcements, 1947-1953 from the same papers.

Grant County has coverage in Mrs Wayne Gribbin’s Obituaries from the Oak Hill Times.

These are all collections of current obituaries. There are many volumes in our collection for older death notices, such as those for the Tell City Anzeiger which covers 1870-1912. Roselyn Wells’ extracts from Butler newspapers currently cover 1894-1939.

Finding these obituary volumes is quite simple. Do a subject search in the catalog using the place name and ‘obituaries’ as the search term. If you need help, ask at the reference desk.

Article taken from the Genealogy Gems[1]: News from the Fort Wayne Library
No. 29, July 31, 2006