Obituaries - They Aren't Just in Newspapers

Genealogists are always looking for new sources. Tracking down information about our ancestors is what we do best. Obituaries are a terrific source of information but genealogists sometimes overlook the hundreds of thousands of obituaries that are not published in newspapers.

For example the Department of the Navy annually report to the U.S. Congress includes a lengthy list of obituaries of naval personnel who passed away in the previous year. These detailed obituaries give the genealogical details of the person’s birth date, birth place and death date & place as well as the details of their military career.

These reports by the Department of the Navy along with the thousands of other documents prepared for government use are consolidated in what is called the U.S. Congressional Serial Set.
You can see a digital copy of the original pages at: www.GenealogyBank.com/free

GenealogyBank.com has digitized these and other government reports going back to the earliest ones issued in 1789. Currently GenealogyBank.com has the Serial Set documents digitized up to 1917. By the end of 2007 GenealogyBank will have the Serial Set digitized through the end of 1930 and it will have the project complete through 1980 in 2009.

It is often difficult to locate the exact dates and places of birth and death for our ancestors that served in the military. People born in the 18th and 19th centuries are particularly hard to document.

GenealogyBank.com makes it easy. You can search the American State Papers (1789-1838) and the US Serial Set (1817-1980) by just typing in a person’s name. It’s that simple.

The obituaries that appeared in the 1883 Annual Report of the Department of the Navy are a terrific example of the type of detailed genealogical information that you will find in these reports – all of them digitized and indexed in GenealogyBank. You can search GenealogyBank for FREE and see your "hits" along with a few lines of the text. That way you may confirm if that GenealogyBank has the content you need. If you want to know more, you can sign-up. Try it.

The complete citation for this document is:
Annual report of the Secretary of the Navy for the year 1883. In two volumes. Volume I. Date: 1883-12-03; Author: U.S. Congress. House Serial Set Vol. No. 2188, Session Vol. No.848th Congress, 1st Session H.Exec.Doc. 1 pt. 3 vol.1 & 2Abstracts of the Obituaries for the year 1883. For the complete obituaries see the actual report.

You can see a digital copy of the original pages at: www.GenealogyBank.com/free