Obituary & people search
Search Michigan Obituaries
Look up obituaries, death records and people by name.
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Obituary guide
How to find an obituary in Michigan
For a recent death, start with the funeral home's website and MLive's regional obituary pages or your local paper. For an older obituary, the state's Michiganology site has death certificates from 1897 to 1952, and Digital Michigan Newspapers and big-city library indexes in Detroit and Kalamazoo cover many decades of local papers.
What to have ready
- Full name, including a maiden name
- Approximate date and place of death (city and county)
- Age at death or birth year
- Names of close relatives (spouse, children, parents)
Tip: Knowing the county narrows the search the most. Michigan's indexes and death records are usually organized by county.
Where to look, by when the person died
| When the person died | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Last few years | Funeral home websites; MLive's Michigan obituaries, organized by region; Legacy.com's Michigan page |
| 1990s to recent decades | Newspaper databases at your public library, and the Library of Michigan's databases for library cardholders; Detroit Public Library's obituary search; Kalamazoo Public Library's newspaper index (Kalamazoo Gazette, indexed since 1972) |
| Older or historic | Digital Michigan Newspapers (Central Michigan University); Chronicling America; microfilm at public libraries; county genealogical societies |
| Official death record | Michiganology's death certificates, 1897–1952. For later deaths, see how to order a Michigan death record. |
Major newspapers' obituary pages
- MLive Michigan obituaries: the hub for MLive's regional papers
- Legacy.com's Michigan page: an index of Michigan newspaper and funeral home notices
The Detroit and Lansing papers' own obituary pages blocked our checks, so we haven't linked them.
Libraries and archives
- Michiganology / Archives of Michigan death certificates: about 1.6 million records. Certificates through 1948 have images, and 1949–1952 are index-only.
- Detroit Public Library, Burton Historical Collection: Wayne County death record index: index PDFs from 1934 on. Copies cost $15 each, with 1–2 weeks' processing.
- Kalamazoo Public Library local newspaper index
- Digital Michigan Newspapers
- Mount Clemens Public Library genealogy resources: home of the Macomb County Obituary Index. Staff will search for people not in the index for $10 if you know the approximate date of death or burial.
- Grand Rapids Public Library and Saginaw's public libraries: local history departments
Timeline expectations
- Recent obituaries: MLive's posted print deadline is 5 p.m. the day before (Friday for Monday's paper; 4 p.m. Saturday for Sunday). Online timing otherwise varies.
- Digitized newspapers: coverage varies by county and title.
- Death certificates: images run through 1948, with index-only entries for 1949–1952.
Tips
- For a Wayne County death from 1934 on, the Detroit Public Library index gives you the details to order a copy.
- Use Michiganology to get an exact date of death before you search newspapers.
- On MLive, pick the region first. Its regional pages let you search that area's obituary archive.
Last verified:
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.