Most genealogists have this in common – The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

So far we have discussed RAOGK.org and Rootsweb Books We Own (BWO).

Today we’ll be looking at two obituary look up resources that can be used hand in hand. The first is “

It is important to read their guidelines for making a request. The volunteers who search for these obituaries can only do so with a decent amount of information. You must provide at least the name of the individual, the date of death and the general location.

Volunteers can be found by clicking the link inside the table at the bottom of the main page which reads, LIST OF VOLUNTEERS. Volunteers are indexed by states within the U.S. and then counties. There is also a list of international volunteers on the List of Volunteers page. This site is free to use and volunteer for.

The second resource we’ll take a look at today is the Obituary Depot. In the web site’s own words: “Obituaries are a wonderful source for genealogical clues by revealing highlights of your ancestor’s life. Several years ago we launched the Regional Obituary Indexing Project and our database now contains over 460,000 citations from newspapers around the world.”

Once you are on the main page of the Obituary Depot you will see three links listed under Online Directories. These links are: United States Obituaries, Canadian Obituaries and Australian Obituaries. Clicking on each link will take you to a page indexed by state/province/territory. I will use the United States page as an example.

Once you have clicked on the state of your choice you will be taken to a page with a search bar. You will type the surname of the ancestor in question into that search bar and click the GO button. You will then be taken to a results page, where you will see names that you can click on. Clicking on one of these names will take you to an obituary citation for that person. Using the citation information you can then visit a site like Obituary Lookup Volunteers discussed above, to request a copy of the actual obituary.