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Search District of Columbia Obituaries
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Obituary guide
How to find an obituary in the District of Columbia
For a recent death, check the funeral home's website and the Washington Post's obituaries and paid death notices. For an older death, DC Public Library's newspaper databases, including the full run of the Evening Star from 1852 to 1981, are the best place to start.
What to have ready
- The person's full name, including a maiden name or nickname
- The approximate date of death, and whether they lived in DC or the nearby Maryland or Virginia suburbs
- Their age or birth year
- Names of close relatives
Knowing where the person actually lived narrows your search the most. Many people who worked in DC lived, died and were remembered in suburban papers.
Where to look, by when the person died
| When the person died | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Last few years | The funeral home's website; Washington Post obituaries and its death notices on Legacy.com |
| 1990s to recent decades | DC Public Library's databases, including the Washington Post, with a DC library card |
| Older or historic | The Evening Star, 1852–1981, and the Washington and Baltimore editions of the Afro-American through DC Public Library; Chronicling America; the DC Archives |
| Official death record | DC death records go back to August 1874 and become public after 75 years. See how to order a DC death certificate. |
Major newspapers' obituary pages
- The Washington Post: news obituaries; many articles need a subscription
- Washington Post death notices: paid notices placed by families, on Legacy.com
- The Washington Informer: a DC weekly covering the Black community. Search its site for the person's name.
Libraries and archives
- DC Public Library offers online newspaper databases, including the Evening Star, the Washington Post and the Afro-American, plus genealogy databases such as Ancestry Library Edition. From home you need a DC Public Library card. At library locations you can search without one.
- The People's Archive at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library lets you search the guides to DCPL's local history collections, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and the Georgetown Neighborhood Library's Peabody Room.
- DC Archives holds death certificates from 1874 to 1945. You can request them through the District's records request page.
Timeline expectations
- Recent obituaries and death notices usually appear online within days, often before the service.
- The Evening Star archive covers every issue from 1852 to 1981. For other papers, coverage varies.
- DC Archives death certificates after 1945 are not yet open to the public.
Tips
- The Washington Post runs two kinds of listings: news obituaries written by staff, and paid death notices written by families. Check both.
- For deaths before the 1980s, search the Evening Star first. It was long considered DC's hometown paper of record.
- If you can't find someone in DC papers, try the suburban Maryland and Virginia papers where the family lived.
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Note: Coverage years, fees and web addresses are set by the libraries, archives and newspapers listed and can change. PublicLibraries.com is not affiliated with them.