Broad River Genealogical Society

Obituary Look-up Service

(Scroll down for latest index!)

"Response to our first announcement of an obituary lookup service has been very interesting. The compliments and praise was great.

The requests were encouraging. And also we had offers of donations of old newspapers. So we need to expound on our dreams.

At our last meeting of the board of directors, we attempted to "fine tune" our obituary service.

Several people asked if BRGS would accept donations of newspapers. YES! YES! YES! We do ask that if you've already clipped

the obits that you provide us with a name of the newspaper and also either the date of death or date of publication.

Some of the older obits only mention the day of the week when referring to the death. Most researchers like to confirm that

they are requesting the correct obituary by referring to a date.

Our Board of Directors also agreed that volunteers only need to search for obits from BRGS' Archives and the

Cleveland County Memorial Library. At this time, we decline to travel to another county. But watch our website for an index.

Perhaps the out of town obit, which you need, will be donated.

Therefore, we felt we needed to inform each of you what is available through these two libraries.

Our local library has microfilmed newspapers starting with 1902. Microfilm ends within three months of the current date,

which is the approximate time, allotted for microfilming and ordering the reels. Then there was a time period where the

newspapers burned before being microfilmed. Therefore, newspapers from 1912 through 1916 are not available.

There are some miscellaneous newspapers microfilmed before 1902. Even some back into the late 1800's.

Dates of miscellaneous newspapers are random and the quality is poor for the pre-1902 newspapers.

BRGS will make an attempt to locate an obit prior to 1902. However, we've not had much success in the early obits.

Broad River Genealogical Society has hard copies of a lot of the local newspapers.

(Newspaper shelves can be seen in the background of photos on our website.)

There have been a few instances where a particular issue was skipped when microfilmed.

Fortunately, BRGS had the hard copy.

For our obituary collection, each obit is laminated, added to an index and we've even begun to digitize the obits.

Currently, we have indexed nearly 2,800 obits. Nearly 150 of those have been scanned.

Volunteers are adding to the BRGS obituary collection each week.

It's already working! Broad River Genealogical Society has begun to offer their services to you.

Can't travel to Cleveland County? Can't wait till you have time to look through newspapers or microfilm?

For a small charge, BRGS will help you! A copy of your requested obit is only $1.50.

Simply mail us your requests at Broad River Genealogical Society; P.O. Box 2261; Shelby, NC 28151.

Please provide us with the name of the deceased, date of death, address for returning the obits, and $1.50 for each obit requested.

Please allow us a minimum of 2 weeks for your search. In the unlikely event that we can not locate an obit for you,

a credit voucher will be returned to you for future orders. Our obituary look up service is offered to members and non-members.

So pass the word around! We'll be glad to assist anyone!

BRGS currently has several obituary books as well as a newly established alphabetized obituary file t

hat is growing by leaps and bounds. Two obituary books are available for purchase:

Some Old Obits, $18.00 and 1001 Obituaries, $23.00. Several other obituary books are available for browsing.

Come out and research our family files and other resources."