If you are researching obituaries in the Bay Area or Silicon Valley, there are a variety of selected resources at Santa Clara County Library District and on the web. Explore these additional useful resources for obituary research from other libraries and services on the web, or request help from our librarians.

Obituary Search Assistance from Santa Clara County Library District.

Additional Libraries

• California State Library
  Using your local library’s Interlibrary Loan service, order microfilm of the San Jose Mercury and other California newspapers (some back to 1850) for the date needed from the California State Library, P.O. Box 942837, Sacramento, CA 94237-0001.
• Mountain View Obituary Database
  An online index to the obituaries found in the Mountain View History Center collection. Most obituaries appeared in local newspapers from 1967 to 2004.
• Palo Alto Historical Association Index to Newspaper Obituaries 1890 to present
  This index allows you to search for citations to articles and obituaries from the Palo Alto Weekly, the Palo Alto Daily News, and other local newspapers.
• San Francisco Public Library
  Offers a free, three per month, obituary search requests for persons whose obituary appeared in San Francisco newspapers.

Index of Published Obituaries

• Obituary Daily Times: search the growing index of published obituaries. The database has entries that give information about obituaries that appeared in publications around the world. Refer to the list of publications for publication abbreviation.

Fee-Based Service

• Santa Clara County Historical & Genealogical Society (SCCHGS)
  SCCHGS is as a nonprofit educational organization that makes available research consultants that can assist in locating an obituary for a fee. Send in your request via email to research@scchgs.org, or write to the Santa Clara County Historical & Genealogical Society, c/o Santa Clara City Library, 2635 Homestead Road, Santa Clara, CA 95051, Attention: Research Consultant; include a self-addressed stamped envelope. The Society recommends that requestors fill out the application, opens a new window.

Commercial Sites for Obituaries and Death Notices

• ObitsArchive.com
  You may search for someone in several newspapers simultaneously. Searching is free, but there is a fee (single article: $2.95; or monthly subscription: 100 articles every 30 days: $19.95) for viewing the obituary.
• Legacy.com Obitfinder
  Searches about 200 U.S. newspapers and the Social Security Death index starting as early as February 2001. Searching is free, but there is a fee (single article: $2.95) for viewing the obituary.

Other

• Santa Clara County, California, Obituaries
  Provides links to free and fee-based obituary search assistance resources.

Free Service

The Santa Clara County Library District provides a free, three per month, obituary/death notice search request service. We perform searches only for persons whose obituary appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, or in the local community newspaper for Santa Clara County. Our access to the San Jose Mercury News is from 1886-1922 and from 1984 to present.

You may complete the Obituary Search Request Form (below) to submit your request.

• All requests are fulfilled on a first come, first served basis.
• Obituaries are published no earlier than 1 week after a person's passing. Please wait at least 1 week after a person's passing before requesting obituary search assistance.
• Please allow 2-4 weeks for us to respond to your request.
• We cannot guarantee that we will find the information you request.

Helpful Hints:

• Please review our newspaper holdings page for specific newspaper titles and dates available to us before submitting your request.
• To expedite your search, please provide the date of death when requesting this service. You can verify the name and the date of death using California Death Records (1940 – 1997), opens a new window and/or the Social Security Death Index, opens a new window (these links go to Ancestry.com which is available in-library only unless you have a paid personal account with them).