Allen County, Indiana Obituary Information

Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana newspaper obituaries can be searched on the Obituary Index of the The Genealogy Center online databases from over 500,000 entries from the Allen County Public Library starting in 1841 through the present time. Researchers can find microfilm of all of the Fort Wayne newspapers in the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center.

Copies of specific obituaries may be ordered by emailing Genealogy@ACPL.Info with the complete citation as found in the index. Cost is $2.50 per obituary, billed at the time of mailing. Response time is typically 4-6 weeks. Your complete name and mailing address must be included with your request. Most of the newspapers through 1920 are also accessible online through the Allen County Public Library computers and by subscription through Ancestry.com's online Historical Newspaper Collection.

Recent obituaries are online at Fort Wayne Newspapers using Legacy.com for archiving their obituaries and some local funeral homes have web sites. The online newspapers go back to 2003, but a year after publication expect to pay $2.95 per obituary for access to archived obituaries.

Old time obituaires were often quite blunt about cause of death, but today they rarely include death details. We have come to rely on cause of death on government certificates recorded in the county courthouse since they became the law in most states starting in the 1880's. A number of recent studies indicate that as many as a third of today's death certificates list the most likely cause of death rather than the actual medical cause of death making their value questionable. Unless a medical autopsy was performed, knowing human nature in todays society, we must wonder how accurate death certificates have ever been.

• Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation - professionally taken photographs of deceased infants donated by professional photographers nationwide. Many old baby photos from 100 years ago that look like sleeping infants were also deceased infants.
• Find A Photographer - Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation
• Suicide cause of many deaths - City pauses to reflect on prevention of suicides September 9, 2009

Funeral Homes and Online Obituaries

Example of a 4 part query on INALLEN - L Rootsweb Mailing List Archive resolved with use of ACPL online Obituary Index.

• 1830's to 1900 Allen County, Indiana Church Burial Records at ACPL
• 1840's to the present Allen County Public Library Online Obituary Index
• 1900 to 1912 - Evangelical Messenger Obituary Index ACPL
• ACGSI list of Funeral Homes
• Allen County Funeral Services - list of companies
• All Funeral Homes.org - Funeral Home Directory
• Carmichael Funeral Service Obituaries
• Covington Memorial Gardens & Funeral Home Obituaries
• D.O. McComb and Sons Funeral Home Obituaries
• Fort Wayne Newspapers obituary index back to about 2003
• FSN Funeral Homes.com - Find A Funeral Home
• Funeral Homes near Fort Wayne - maps of locations
• Klaehn, Fahl, & Melton Funeral Homes - started in 1876 from Indiana History.org pdf
• Legacy.com online obituaries
• Newspaper Obituary Archive - nationwide search requires subscription

Obituary Abstracts

Richard Berkheiser has posted obituary abstracts from his Newspaper Tidbits Project on the Allen County, Indiana Rootsweb Mailing List. Clicking the colored date links will open the obituary abstracts in a new browser window. He does not have every day, but whatever he has will be linked from here. The big disadvantage is he does not have an index, just the daily lists so you need to use the APLC online index to know the dates to use the abstracts linked below.

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