Click on the first letter of the surname you are interested in.
(Note: We have not extracted index information for surnames starting with X yet)
The Alice Essig Informational Cards Collection is available at this link
Alice Essig created about 12,000 index cards for individuals who were researched at GRHS using, in part, information from these Obituary files.
To acquire an obituary from GRHS, contact the Society at its headquarters providing us with :
In July 2001, the Society's Board of Directors directed its Obituary Committee to input its Obituary Collection into a program in the computer in order to preserve electronically the collection, and to place on its web site an index of the obituaries, which the Society holds. To that end, the Obituary Committee developed the Obituary Inputting Project. The stated purposes of this project are two-fold:
It is NOT the purpose of this project to input the obituaries for the purpose of setting up a system of searching them for data and information. It was decided by the Board of Directors, at the recommendation of the Obituary Committee, to not do so because the purposes of the Obituary Committee, as stated in the Society's by-laws do not include doing research for others, or for establishing procedures for doing so. Thus, the approach to the project was primarily for preservation purposes. The computer program chosen to electronically preserve the Obituary Collection has the capability of developing an index of the obituaries. It was decided to develop such indexes and to place them on the Society's web page in order to allow access to its Obituary Collection to interested parties who do not have access to the physical collection of obituaries in the Society's headquarters.
The obituary indexes found in this web site consist of
Presently, about 12 volunteers are inputting obituaries into the program. They are sent small batches of obituary cards, input them and then send Gedcom files of those, which they have input, to the director of the project. One main file is maintained by the director in his computer. When all obituaries in respective letters of obituaries have been input, an index of the obituaries in the file is developed and subsequently placed on the Society’s web site. Periodically, these indexes are replaced by updated indexes, as additional obituaries are input into the computer.
Staff members of GRHS and the director of the project pull duplicate obituaries from the Obituary Collection before batches of obituaries are sent to volunteers. These duplicate obituaries are not thrown away, but are sent to another library, which is developing its own obituary collection.
In 2001, it was estimated by the chairpersons of the Obituary Committee that the Obituary Inputting Project might take upwards of ten years or longer to complete. The project may never be totally completed because “new” obituaries continue to arrive at the Society’s headquarters. These are subsequently input into the computer.
It has been estimated by the chairpersons of the Obituary Committee that the Society’s Obituary Collection contains upwards of 350,000 obituaries. The major guideline used to include an obituary in the Obituary Collection is that at least one name in the obituary must be Germanic.
In the over 33 years since the establishment of the Obituary Collection, many obituaries have been misfiled. A side benefit of the Obituary Inputting Project is that the collection is being straightened out. For researchers who use the physical file in the Society’s headquarters, it now becomes a more viable research tool.
Ted J. Becker, Obituary Committee Chairperson, 2004
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