5 Best Free Online Obituary Websites to Search for Someone

You're trying to find a death notice, confirm a date of passing, or trace a family member you lost touch with years ago. Scrolling through random search results wastes time, and half the sites you click on demand a credit card before they'll show you anything useful. That's the frustration that sends most people looking for online obituary websites in the first place.

The good news: several solid free online obituary sites exist, and you don't need to pay a subscription fee to search them. Some pull from newspaper archives, others crowdsource submissions from funeral homes, and a few let families add details that never made it into print. Knowing which ones actually deliver results, instead of just teasing you with a name and a paywall, makes searching for an obituary online much faster.

Below, we cover five of the best obituary website free options for tracking down someone's obituary, what each one does well, and where they fall short. We'll also touch on why more families are moving beyond a one-time obituary listing toward a permanent online memorial page, the kind that lets you add photos, stories, and a place for others to leave condolences long after the funeral is over.

1. Legacy.com

What it offers

Legacy.com is the largest online obituary website in the United States, partnering with more than 1,500 newspapers to publish death notices as they run in print. That partnership means you're searching a genuinely massive archive rather than a handful of user submissions. Most families still list an obituary with a local paper first, so Legacy.com tends to be the first stop when you're hunting for someone who passed recently or decades ago.

If a paper printed it, Legacy.com probably has it.

How to search for someone

Searching is straightforward and doesn't require an account:

• Go to the Legacy.com search bar on the homepage
• Enter the person's first and last name
• Narrow results by state, city, or approximate date of death if you know them
• Filter by newspaper if you know where the family lived

Broadening your search radius helps if the family relocated near the end of life, since obituaries often run in the newspaper closest to where the person died, not where they lived for most of their life.

What information you'll find

A typical listing includes the full obituary text, photo, funeral home details, and service dates. Many entries also carry an online guestbook for tribute messages where friends and family have already left condolences, which can be a good way to reconnect with relatives you've lost contact with.

Cost

Basic searching and reading obituaries on Legacy.com costs nothing. You'll hit a paywall only if you want to send flowers, purchase a keepsake book, or place a new paid notice, which comes with its own per-word pricing. For anyone simply trying to confirm a date or find service information, the free tier covers everything you need, making it one of the better free obituary websites for a quick, reliable search.

2. Everloved

What it offers

Everloved started as a platform for planning funeral services online, but it's grown into one of the more useful free obituary websites for finding recent obituaries, especially in smaller communities. Funeral homes upload service details directly, so listings often appear faster than they would through a traditional newspaper. If you're searching for someone who passed in the last few days, Everloved frequently has the notice up before Legacy.com does.

Funeral homes post here first, so recent deaths show up faster than on newspaper-based sites.

How to search for someone

The search function sits right on the homepage and works well without an account:

• Type the person's name into the search bar
• Add a city or state to narrow results
• Browse by funeral home if you know which one handled arrangements

What information you'll find

Listings typically include service times, livestream links for the funeral, and a short biography. Many pages also let visitors leave written condolences or make a donation to a cause the family chose.

Cost

Searching and viewing obituaries is completely free. Everloved charges funeral homes for premium listing tools, not families or visitors looking someone up.

3. FamilySearch

What it offers

FamilySearch is a free genealogy database run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it holds billions of historical records, including obituaries scanned from old newspapers and church bulletins. It's less useful for a death that happened last week, but unmatched if you're tracing a grandparent, great-aunt, or ancestor from decades or even a century ago. Anyone building a family tree or looking for ways to preserve family memories for future generations eventually ends up here.

For recent deaths, try Legacy or Everloved. For ancestors, FamilySearch is the deeper archive.

How to search for someone

You'll need a free account to view full records, but creating one takes a minute:

• Create a free FamilySearch account
• Search the person's name, birth year, and death year
• Check the "obituaries" filter under record type
• Cross-reference with census or cemetery records linked on the same profile

What information you'll find

Results often include the scanned original obituary, plus linked records like marriage certificates, census entries, and family tree connections other users have already built.

Cost

FamilySearch is entirely free, with no premium tier or paywall, since it's funded as a nonprofit genealogical service rather than a commercial one.

4. Find a Grave

What it offers

Find a Grave started as a hobbyist project to catalog cemetery headstones and grew into one of the largest online obituary sites on the internet, with over 200 million memorial records. Volunteers photograph headstones and upload burial details, so it's especially strong for confirming exactly where someone is buried, not just when they died. If you know a family plot or cemetery name, this is often the fastest way to locate a specific grave.

When you need a burial location, not just a date, Find a Grave usually has it.

How to search for someone

Searching works without creating an account:

• Enter the person's first and last name
• Add birth or death year if known
• Search by cemetery name or location instead, if the name search turns up too many matches
• Check nearby family members listed as linked memorials

What information you'll find

Most memorials include birth and death dates, cemetery name, plot location, and a headstone photo. Many also list linked family members, making it easier to trace siblings, spouses, or parents buried nearby.

Cost

Browsing and searching Find a Grave is free. An account lets you add photos or manage a memorial, but viewing existing records costs nothing.

5. Local newspaper and funeral home websites

What it offers

Sometimes the best source is the one closest to home. Many small and mid-sized newspapers still run their own obituary archives that never get picked up by the bigger aggregator sites, and the funeral home that handled the arrangements almost always keeps its own record too. If you're searching for someone from a rural town or a tight-knit community, checking the local paper's website directly often turns up details you won't find anywhere else.

The smaller the town, the more likely the answer sits on a site Google barely indexes.

How to search for someone

Start by identifying the town or county where the person lived, then look up that newspaper's name directly. From there:

• Search the newspaper's own obituary or archive section
• Check the funeral home website listed on the death certificate or family Facebook posts
• Call the funeral home directly if their site has no online archive

What information you'll find

Expect the full printed obituary, service dates, and sometimes a memorial video or slideshow the funeral home put together for the family.

Cost

Most local papers and funeral homes post obituaries for free. A few small papers charge for archived issues older than a set number of years, so calling ahead can save you a wasted search.

Keeping their memory alive

Any of these five sites will help you confirm a date, find a burial location, or piece together a family tree. Legacy.com and Everloved cover recent losses fast, FamilySearch and Find a Grave dig into history, and local papers fill in the gaps the big aggregators miss. Together, they solve the search problem you started with.

But an obituary is a snapshot, a few paragraphs that run once and then get buried in an archive. It doesn't hold the photos, the stories your family actually tells at holidays, or a place for scattered relatives to add their own memories over time. Digital memorial pages solve that gap, giving you a permanent space that grows instead of one that just sits there.

If you've found the person you were searching for and want to give them something lasting, create a free digital memorial tribute page and start building a tribute that outlives any single obituary.