Obituary & people search
Search Nebraska Obituaries
Look up obituaries, death records and people by name.
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Obituaries in another state
Obituary guide
How to find an obituary in Nebraska
For a recent death, start with the funeral home's website and the obituary pages of the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star or your local paper. For an older obituary, search Nebraska Newspapers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the Omaha obituary indexes, and the archives at Omaha Public Library and Lincoln City Libraries.
What to have ready
- Full name, including a maiden name
- Approximate date and place of death (town and county)
- Age at death or birth year
- Names of close relatives (spouse, children, parents)
Tip: Knowing the county narrows the search the most. Most small-town obituaries ran in the county weekly.
Where to look, by when the person died
| When the person died | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Last few years | Funeral home websites; the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and Grand Island Independent; Legacy.com's Nebraska page |
| 1990s to recent decades | Lincoln City Libraries: the Journal Star collection back to 1996 and the World-Herald back to 1983, with a library card; Omaha Public Library's genealogy resources |
| Older or historic | Nebraska Newspapers (UNL); the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society's Omaha obituaries index; Omaha Public Library's Omaha Area Obits index; Chronicling America; microfilm at local libraries |
| Official death record | See how to order a Nebraska death record and Nebraska DHHS Vital Records. |
Major newspapers' obituary pages
Each paper's own obituary link leads to these Legacy.com pages. They loaded on our check without a login.
Libraries and archives
- Nebraska Newspapers (UNL): 93 titles and 777,324 pages at our check (about the project)
- Omaha Public Library genealogy: includes Omaha Area Obits, an index to obituaries and death notices in Omaha papers
- Greater Omaha Genealogical Society obituaries index
- Lincoln City Libraries Local History Center
Timeline expectations
- Recent obituaries: these appear online once the family or funeral home publishes them, so timing varies.
- Archives: the World-Herald collection goes back to 1983 and the Journal Star to 1996 through Lincoln City Libraries. UNL's digitized papers are mostly older, so coverage varies.
- Lookup turnaround: not stated by the sources we checked.
Tips
- For Omaha deaths, search Omaha Area Obits and the GOGS index before reading microfilm.
- Omaha Area Obits includes people who lived within about an hour to an hour and a half of Omaha, if the notice ran in an Omaha paper.
- For rural Nebraska, find the county weekly in UNL's city list, then ask the local library about microfilm.
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.