This database is a listing of the Death Notices and Obituaries from the Grand Rapids Newspapers over the period 1910 into 2010. Most of the records are from Kent County, but some obituaries for people from surrounding counties are also included if they were published in one of the Grand Rapids newspapers.
It also includes an index to the death notices in the Rockford Register. The index is complete from 1871 (first issue) to 1941 for all years and issues that exist in that time frame. Anything pre-1906 is only available at the Kraus Library in Rockford. After 1906 scattered years (1928-1936 or so) are also only available in Rockford.
Since 1 January 2000 it has also included articles from the paper that have information about a death, including court case, and the weekly "Engagements, Weddings and Anniversaries" as published in the Saturday issue.
Starting on 25 January 2008 the index now includes the daily "In Memoriam" entries from the Grand Rapids Press.
An ongoing project is to index the "EWA" - Engagements, Weddings and Anniversaries listings from the papers prior to 1 January 2000. This is going back in time from 31 December 1999.
If you live in or near Grand Rapids, MI, you can go to the Grand Rapids Public Library and make the copies yourself.
This database is the result of a lot of work by a number of people.
We would like to add transcriptions of these records to the database so that future researchers will be able to view a transcription of a record online for free. We hope you will consider typing up transcriptions of these records after you have received them.
Please eMail them to DataMaster@wmgs.org
Please include the name of the newspaper, the date and page number as well as the transcription in this format...
The posted record will include your name, and a link to your eMail address so that anyone else searching this will have the opportunity to contact you directly. If you don't want your name and eMail address linked to the transcription let me know and I'll just post the transcription for others to find.
