Obituaries

In my post Find the Dead I showed a way to Google for an obituary. The way I showed works, but there is a “cleaner” way to do it, and there is a better way to search for married females.

First: Cleaner. Originally I recommended that we enter a Google search such as:

obituary Clyde McIntyre 1999

This search returns the following:

I then recommended that we copy the URL line that was returned, and paste it into the URL box in the Add/Edit Favorite Site screen. Here is the broken down for size URL returned from this search:

“https://www.google.com/search”

“?q=obituary+clyde+mcintyre+1999”

“&rlz=1C1JZAP_enUS858US858”

“&oq=obituary+Clyde+McIntyre+1999”

“&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l2j69i60.17486j0j9”

“&sourceid=chrome”

“&ie=UTF-8”

There are four parameters in the “?q=” part of the search: obituary, Clyde, McIntyre and 1999. I then recommended that we edit this URL and replace the last three of these parameters with the codes which will tell AQ where to find the same information for the current AQ individual record. That would leave us with this URL, here broken down into its separate parts:

“https://www.google.com/search”
“?q=obituary+%%FN%%+%%LN%%+%%DY%%”
“&rlz=1C1JZAP_enUS858US858”
“&oq=obituary+Clyde+McIntyre+1999”
“&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l2j69i60.17486j0j9”
“&sourceid=chrome”
“&ie=UTF-8”

If we use this URL, AQ will examine it and replace the codes %%FN%%, %%LN%% and %%DY%% with the first name, last name and death year of your current AQ individual. That still leaves this string in the middle of the Google search:

&oq=obituary+Clyde+McIntyre+1999

…and that has nothing to do with a search for the obituary of a different person in our family file. It will still work, but I prefer the “cleaner” way of doing it:

https://www.google.com/search?q=obituary+%%FN%%+%%LN%%+%%DY%%

Just my personal preference. It seems a lot easier to understand, besides that is all Google needs to do the search.

Second: I have seen obituaries where the maiden name of a married female is never seen in the text. Those who submitted the obituary used only her married name and either didn’t or couldn’t list the names of her parents. That makes it harder to find her from AQ because her record in AQ is, by default, stored with her maiden name as her surname. Because of this, I recommend a second search for married females which looks like this…

https://www.google.com/search?q=obituary+%%FN%%+%%SLN%%+%%DY%%

…where %%SLN%% will be replaced with the surname of the spouse. But First lets create the Obituaty (Male or Unmarried) version of the Google search.

Beginning by clicking on the Internet tab…

…here is what the entire NEW process would look like:

Click Favorite sites. This will return the My Favorite Web Sites screen…

…where we click on the Add button. That gives us the Add/Edit Favorite Site screen…

…where we type the Title:

Obituary (Male or Unmarried)

and the URL:

https://www.google.com/search?q=obituary+%%FN%%+%%LN%%+%%DY%%

and click the Search this site check box. Now click the OK button. This returns us to the My Favorite Web Sites screen…

…where we click on Close. This returns us to our Edit Individual screen. Now for the obituary with no maiden name. Click on the Internet tab.

This brings up the Internet Menu:

Here we will click on Favorite Sites, which brings up the My Favorite Web Sites screen.

Here we click on Add, to bring up the Add/Edit Favorite Site screen.

We enter the Title:

Obituary (Married Female)

We enter the URL:

https://www.google.com/search?q=obituary+%%FN%%+%%SLN%%+%%DY%%

…where we are asking for the Spouse Last Name, and we click the Search this site check box. Now we click OK, which returns us to the My Favorite Web Sites screen…

…which shows us the two new entries. Click Close, and you are now set to go…

…well, almost.

Now that we have a way to find an obituary, what are we going to do?

Lets click on the Internet tab…

…and bring up the Internet menu.

We will click on Search Favorite Sites. This brings up the Search a Web Site screen…

…where we will highlight Obituary (Married Female) and click on the Perform Internet Search button.

This brings us the result of the Google search. There are three importrant things returned from this search. There is a link to an obituary at lindquistmortuary.com and a link to an obituary at legacy.com. (That’s two of the three. Note, I haven’t shown the third, but it will be here soon) We can use either of these obiruaries, however there is an advantage to using the legacy.com version. Legacy.com includes obituaries found on the websites of several mortuaries and several newspapers. This can simplify documenting the source of this obituary. Since Legacy.com doesn’t perform all the services of a mortuary or of a newspaper, they are a specialized business. They do obituaries. Their business is being a repository of obituaries. I believe they are a reliable source of permanent obituary retention. I will set up legacy.com as a repository. Click on the Edit tab…

…and click on Repository List. This brings up the Edit Repository List screen.

Note, I already have this repository, but I will show you how to create it. Type Legacy.com in the Repositories box and click on Add.

In the Define Repository Address box, enter the address of Legacy.com, then click the OK button. This will return you to the Edit Repositories List screen where you will click the Close button. Now ckick on the Edit tab…

…and click on Source List. I already have Legacy.com on my list, but you will need to type Legacy.com into the top box and click the Add button. This will take you to the Create Source screen. Mine already exists, so I will show you what to do by showing you what I did.

I clicked the Edit button to enter the link to the Legacy.com site. I clicked the Repository button to select Legacy.com as my repository, and I filled in the other fields as you see them. What you enter here is up to you. When you are finished, click the OK button. This returns you to the Create Source screen where you will click the OK button. In the Edit Source List click the Close button.

Now that you can get the obituary and show the source, where will you put it?

Click the Edit tab.

Click on Event Types. This brings up the Define Other Events screen. (You see the word Edit because I already had the Obituary (online) event type.)

Click on the Add Type button. This brings up the Define Other Event – User Defined screen.

I named this Obituary (Online) because I already had an event named Obituary which works differently. I selected a Single date as the only input because its sole purpose is to move the event to the bottom of the list. You will need to create an event sentence in the Sentence Usage area. You can copy this next line into it…

%(%2;%3) has an online obituary. (Click Edit then *Source to View the obituary)

…if it will make it easier for you. (or create some other sentence if you like)

All of the important information is stored in the Source of the Other Event. Lets add the event. Remember that we already did the Google search and found an obituary published by Legacy.com.

From the Other Events block on the Edit Individual screen, click on the Add button. This brings up the Select Event for… screen.

Scroll down to the Obituary (online) event and Select it. This will return the Obituary (online) – Individual screen.

Enter the date of the death or the burial date, then click the Source button. This brings up the Select Source for Obituary (online) screen.

Scroll down to the Legacy.com source and click the Select button. When we ran the Google search and returned the obituary, the URL line of that screen held the information we need. (I told you there were three important things.)

Copy it…

…and paste it into the Line/Page/Film# box, then click the Attach button. This brings up the Add Scrapbook Item… screen.

Open the Item Type pull down window and select Other. Paste the URL into the Filename or URL box, and click the OK button.

Note that the URL is now in the Atachment box and the Attach button now reads Edit. If you click the View button, the browser will display the obituary, and that was the whole point of all this. AQ is now storing the link to the online obituary for this individual. You can retrieve it by editing the Obituary (online) event and viewing the attachment in the source. Click the OK button, then click the next OK button.

Note that the Obituary (online) event is now added to the Other Events list, and the X shows that it has a source.

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