06 April 2011

Daily Oklahoman Obituaries

I just finished entering and importing 3672 obituaries, death notices, cards of thanks, murder accounts, etc. from the Daily Oklahoman covering the period 1910 through 1919. I realize this is far from all deaths reported from around Oklahoma in the Daily Oklahoman during that time period, but it is definitely a good start.

I made searches initially on the word "obituary". Then I searched on "card of thanks", "vital statistics", "suicide", and a couple of other possibities. Later I will check for other key words. But currently I am working on the Daily Oklahoman's first nine years: 1901-1909.

So if you are looking for someone who died in the Oklahoma City area, there's a good chance I have that person in my database. I have all known tombstone inscriptions for the county, obits/death notices for the main newspaper in OKC, probate index entries for through 1907, and miscellaneous records I have come across.

Future searches will include the following:

• OKC Health Department Death Index (at OHS)
• Fairlawn Cemetery sexton's records
• Church records
• Funeral Home records
• Other cemetery sexton's recpords

I've also been searching through on-line newspaper archives through the Chronicling America website. So far I've added info from newspapers in Anadarko, Durant and Vinita. It's exciting to be finding so many records. I only wish I had more time!