HomeFuneral resourcesWriting an obituary

Writing an obituary

Two jobs in one piece of writing. It has to tell people when and where to turn up, and it has to sound like the person. Newspapers charge by the line for the first job, which is why so many families now do the second one somewhere free and better read.

Written by Raphael Hertz, licensed life insurance agentUpdated 1 September 2026Editorial standards

A death notice and an obituary are different things

A death notice is a short paid classified. Name, age, town, date of death, service details, and where to send donations. It exists so people know where to be. It is priced like an advertisement because that is what it is.

An obituary in the newspaper sense is an article written by a journalist about somebody the paper judges newsworthy, and the family does not pay for it or control it. Most papers no longer write these except for public figures. What the industry now sells under the word obituary is a longer death notice, still paid by the line, with a photograph added.

The piece most families actually want, the one that reads like a life rather than a listing, has no length limit and no cost at all when it is published on the funeral home page or a memorial site. Write that one properly and buy the short paid notice separately if your community still reads the paper.

What to include, in order

This order is conventional and it is conventional for a reason. Readers scan for the name, then the service details, then the family. Anything you bury below the fold in a long paragraph gets missed by half the people who needed it.

Element	What goes in it
Announcement	Full name, any nickname in quotation marks, maiden name, age, town of residence, and the date of death. Cause of death is entirely optional
Life in brief	Where born, to whom, education, military service, career, marriage, where the family settled
The part that sounds like them	Two or three sentences on what they did with their time, what they were known for, and one specific detail nobody else would write
Survivors	Immediate family by relationship, in the conventional order below
Predeceased by	Spouse, children, parents and siblings who died first
Service details	Type of service, date, start time, venue and full address, plus visitation or viewing times if there is one
Interment	Cemetery name and whether the graveside is public or private
Memorial donations	The charity name, and ideally a direct link or a postal address
Thanks	Optional. Hospice, a care home or a particular unit, named
Where to leave a message	The funeral home page carrying the online guest book

If any of the service details are not settled yet, publish without them and say a service will be announced. Delaying the whole notice until a venue is confirmed is how people find out too late to come.

Listing survivors without causing a rift

More families fall out over this paragraph than over the whole rest of the funeral. The convention runs spouse first, then children with their spouses in parentheses, then grandchildren and great grandchildren by number rather than by name where there are many, then surviving parents, then siblings, then nieces, nephews and close friends collectively.

Three rules save a great deal of grief. Spell every single name the way that person spells it, and have somebody from each branch of the family check their own line. Decide in advance how you are handling stepchildren, former spouses and long term partners, then apply the same rule to everybody rather than case by case. And if a relationship was estranged, the neutral options are to list the person plainly with no adjective or to use a collective phrase, never to make the omission the story.

Pets are commonly named now. It is not a mistake, and for somebody who lived alone with a dog it may be the truest line in the notice.

What to leave out

Obituaries are public, permanent and indexed, and they are a known source of material for identity fraud and for burglary. Nothing here requires paranoia, only editing.

Leave out the full date of birth, since the combination of a full birth date, a full name and a mother’s maiden name is most of what an application for credit needs. Leave out the mother’s maiden name as such, and simply write that she was born to her parents by name. Leave out the home address and the exact hours the house will be empty during the service. Leave out the Social Security number, which should never appear, and any detail about the estate or what anybody has inherited.

Cause of death is your choice and there is no expectation either way. Families increasingly name a cause where it was an illness the person spoke about openly, or where a charity is being supported because of it. Nobody is owed the information.

Notify the credit bureaux and the Social Security Administration promptly in any case. The Federal Trade Commission keeps guidance on protecting the identity of somebody who has died, and it is worth ten minutes.

Writing it so somebody wants to read it

The failure mode is a list of dates that could describe anybody. The fix is one specific, concrete, slightly odd detail. The order in which she read the newspaper. The fact that he rebuilt the same lawnmower every spring for thirty years and it never once started first time. What they always said when somebody arrived.

Write it in the third person and the past tense. Keep it to somewhere between 200 and 500 words for a paid notice, which is already an expensive length, and go as long as you like for an online version. Avoid the phrases that appear in every notice ever printed, because a reader stops seeing them. Read the whole thing aloud once. Anything you stumble over, rewrite.

Get two people to check it. One for facts, dates, spellings and the service details, and one for tone. Then check the venue address and the start time a third time, on their own, because those are the two errors that actually cost somebody the funeral.

Where to publish, and what each costs

Where	Typical cost	Who it reaches
Funeral home website	Included	Everyone the family sends the link to, plus a guest book. Usually the version people actually read
Local daily or metropolitan newspaper	$200 to $600 and up	Older local readers. Priced by the line or the column inch, with a premium for a photograph and for Sunday
Small town weekly or community paper	Free to modest	Some still run local death notices at no charge. Always worth one phone call
National obituary aggregator	Bundled or free	Often carried automatically when the newspaper notice or the funeral home page is created
Church, synagogue or mosque bulletin	Free	The congregation, which is frequently the group most likely to attend
Union, alumni or professional newsletter	Free	Working life contacts nobody in the family has phone numbers for
Social media post by the family	Free	By a wide margin the fastest reach. Lock the post to friends if you would rather it did not travel
Genealogy and memorial sites	Free	Nobody now, and descendants in fifty years

A paid newspaper notice is a third party charge, not a funeral home service, even when the funeral home places it for you. It should appear as a cash advance item on the itemised statement, and you are entitled to see what the paper charged. How the rest of the bill is built up covers where these third party lines sit.

How newspapers actually charge

Most papers price a death notice by the line or by the column inch, so length is money in a very direct way. A photograph is charged as extra depth. Weekend editions carry a premium. Many papers sell a bundle that places the notice in print and on their online partner, and some will only sell it that way.

Obituary cost goes through the pricing structure in more detail. Ask three specific questions before you submit anything. What is the rate per line or per inch, what does a photograph add, and is there a minimum charge. Then write to the length you can afford rather than writing first and finding out afterwards. Publish the long version online and use the paid notice for name, age, town, service details and a pointer to where the full piece lives.

Free places that reach more people than you think

The funeral home page is the workhorse. It carries the full text, the photograph, the service details, an online guest book and usually a flowers or donations link, and it costs nothing extra because it is part of what you are already paying for.

Beyond that, think about the rooms the person was actually in. A church bulletin, a veterans post newsletter, a union local, a professional body, an alumni magazine, a hobby club, a neighbourhood group. Each of those reaches people who knew the person in a way the family never saw, and none of them charge. If the person served, military funeral honours can be requested and are worth mentioning in the notice so people know what to expect at the graveside.

Whatever you publish, keep a copy. Families ask for it again a year later and the newspaper archive is often behind a paywall by then. Funeral etiquette covers the other half of this, which is what people should do once they have read it.

One practical note on cost

A notice, flowers, the clergy honorarium and the reception are all third party charges the funeral home does not set, and they land on the family in the same fortnight as everything else. A small policy written for funeral costs is intended to cover exactly that spread of bills.

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Common questions

How much does it cost to publish an obituary?

A paid newspaper notice commonly runs $200 to $600, and materially more in a large metropolitan daily, because papers price by the line or the column inch with a premium for a photograph and for weekend editions. Publishing on the funeral home website is normally included in what you are already paying, and community papers, church bulletins and alumni newsletters often carry a notice free.

What is the difference between an obituary and a death notice?

A death notice is a short paid classified giving the name, age, town, date of death and service details. A true obituary is an article written by a newspaper about somebody it judges newsworthy, at no cost to the family and outside their control. What papers now sell as an obituary is a longer paid death notice with a photograph.

What should you not put in an obituary?

The full date of birth, the mother’s maiden name as such, the home address, the exact hours the house will be empty during the service, the Social Security number and any detail about the estate. Those are the pieces identity fraud and burglary rely on, and none of them help a reader.

Do you have to say the cause of death?

No. It is entirely the family’s choice and there is no expectation either way. Families often name a cause where the person spoke about the illness openly, or where donations are being directed to a charity connected to it. Otherwise the conventional wording simply gives the date of death.

In what order do you list survivors?

Spouse first, then children with their spouses in parentheses, then grandchildren and great grandchildren, often by number rather than by name where there are many, then surviving parents, then siblings, then nieces, nephews and close friends collectively. Decide in advance how you are handling stepchildren, former spouses and long term partners, and apply the same rule to everybody.

How long should an obituary be?

Between about 200 and 500 words for a paid notice, because you are paying by the line, and as long as you like for the version on the funeral home website. Most families now write the full piece online and buy a short paid notice carrying the name, the service details and a pointer to where the full text lives.

Who writes the obituary?

Usually a family member, often with the funeral director helping to format it and place it. There is no requirement to use the funeral home. You may write it yourself and submit it to the paper directly, which sometimes costs less, and you should proofread whatever version the funeral home drafts before it is published.

Where can you publish an obituary for free?

The funeral home website, which is included in the service you are already buying. Beyond that, church and congregation bulletins, small town weeklies that still run local death notices at no charge, union and professional newsletters, alumni magazines, community and neighbourhood groups, family social media and free genealogy and memorial sites.