New Online Document in Digital Library

Helps Old House Owners Research

The San Diego Public Library has recently added an important new document to the SDPL Digital Library collection, which indexes obituaries and death notices in the San Diego Union (from 1868-1915) and the San Diego Herald (from 1851-1860). Until now, research of this type required extensive manual research in the older indexes and papers.

Each entry in the listing shows the name, age of decedent, and the date and page number in the newspaper where the obituary or death notice appeared. The current project document, now online, includes 72,340 entries in 372 pages. Users can search the entire document online, or download a copy of it; visit the Library web site at www.sandiegolibrary.org and select "Digital Library Collection," listed under "Resources & Research."

"Anyone using this new resource to find obituaries from these periods will be very happy. It's an essential tool for studying San Diego genealogy," said Special Collections' Librarian Rick Crawford. "Preparing this part has been a labor-intensive but rewarding project."

Future steps in this project call for more entries, indexing the years 1916 through 1983. Anyone interested in volunteering to help in this endeavor can contact Mr. Crawford by email at rcrawford@sandiego.gov, or by phone at (619) 236-5852.