Obituary Checklist
A practical obituary checklist for families gathering names, dates, service details, life-story notes, donation wording, newspaper requirements, costs, and privacy checks before publication.
Use This Before Drafting
A useful obituary checklist does more than collect facts. It helps the family decide what belongs in public, what needs verification, what the newspaper or funeral home requires, and what can move to a longer online story if the printed notice is too expensive or too short.
Work through the list once before writing, then again before approving the proof. The second pass catches misspelled names, missing survivors, unsafe public details, broken donation links, and cost surprises.
What To Gather
Essential public facts
- Full legal name, preferred name, maiden name, nicknames, suffixes, and spelling checks
- Age, city of residence, date of death, and whether place or cause of death should stay private
- Funeral, visitation, memorial, burial, livestream, or private-service details
- Funeral home, cemetery, officiant, reception, or memorial-page information if it belongs in the notice
Life story details
- Birthplace, parents, childhood places, schools, degrees, military service, work, awards, and affiliations
- Marriage, partnership, children, grandchildren, chosen family, caregivers, mentors, and close community
- One specific scene, habit, object, recipe, route, room, tool, phrase, or photograph that makes the person recognizable
- Claims that need confirmation through records, clippings, letters, public sources, or family documents
Family and survivor review
- Surviving family names and relationships in the order the family prefers
- Predeceased family members, former spouses, step-relatives, and chosen-family language
- Name spellings, city names, school names, organization names, and titles
- A final family reader who can check tone, fairness, privacy, and missing context
Publication choices
- Whether this should be a short death notice, a fuller obituary, a funeral-home page, or an online memorial story
- Newspaper deadline, proof-of-death rules, word or line limits, photo rules, payment timing, and proofing process
- Whether the funeral home will submit the obituary or the family will contact the publication directly
- Whether print space is limited enough to use a short notice plus a fuller online story
Cost and quote review
- Minimum obituary or death-notice charge
- Whether pricing is by word, line, column inch, package, photo, run day, or online bundle
- Whether the quote includes print, online archive, guestbook, photos, extra days, and partner-site placement
- Whether a funeral-home statement lists the obituary as a third-party or cash-advance item
Privacy and safety pass
- Remove or generalize full birth date, home address, exact service timing risks, financial details, and private medical details
- Verify donation links, memorial fund names, charity pages, and family-support instructions before publication
- Leave out family conflict, rumors, legal claims, and sensitive facts that do not help the public story
- Save a clean approved draft so copied, altered, or fake obituary pages can be checked later
Final Review Before Publication
- Read the obituary aloud once for tone and once for facts.
- Check every name, date, place, service time, and link against the source of truth.
- Ask whether the first paragraph still works if a newspaper truncates the rest.
- Confirm the price and proof before payment or final approval.
- Keep the fuller life story somewhere permanent if the newspaper version must be short.
Sources And Checklist Examples
- Everplans: death notice or obituary checklist
Family-facing checklist covering basic death-notice details, biographical information, service details, and donation information.
- ObitsArchive: obituary template checklist
Template checklist for gathering announcement details, life events, family information, service information, and optional details before writing.
- Memorials.com: how to write an obituary
Step-by-step obituary-writing guide with emphasis on gathering information, structuring the life story, adding service details, and checking the draft.
- Survivorship A to Z: what to include and not include in an obituary
Pre-planning resource that separates biographical details, family information, funeral details, and optional details to include or leave out.
- American Heritage Cemetery & Funeral Home: how to write an obituary
Funeral-home resource that frames the obituary as both public notice and life account, with practical writing and planning context.
- Checklist.com: funeral planning checklist
Broader funeral-planning checklist that includes collecting personal information for an obituary as one of the administrative tasks after a death.
Read Source-Backed Obituary Stories
- Samuel Beckett: Samuel Beckett: Wound Waiting
The writer who survived a knife near the heart and later made waiting into modern theatre.
2026-07-19 - Sources: Samuel Beckett Society Biography, NobelPrize.org Samuel Beckett Facts, The Independent - Nancy Sheung: Nancy Sheung: Darkroom Light
The Hong Kong photographer who made women own the frame.
2026-07-18 - Sources: New York Times Overlooked, Photography of China, Hundred Heroines - Robbie Basho: Robbie Basho: Raga Ghost
The steel-string mystic who made the guitar feel like prayer.
2026-07-17 - Sources: New York Times Overlooked, Berkeleyside, AllMusic - Manoel Francisco dos Santos (Garrincha): Garrincha: Bent-Legged Angel
The Brazilian winger whose bent legs became football joy.
2026-07-16 - Sources: Britannica, New York Times, FIFA
Obituary Checklist FAQ
What information do you need to write an obituary?
You need the full legal name and any nickname or maiden name, dates and places of birth and death, the names of survivors and predeceased family, education and career history, military or community service, hobbies and accomplishments, service and burial details, and any donation preferences. Gathering these before drafting prevents missing facts and last-minute corrections.
What should you check before publishing an obituary?
Before publishing, verify the spelling of every name, confirm all dates, double-check the service time and location, have at least one other family member proofread, confirm the newspaper's word limit and deadline, test any donation links, and review for private details that should be removed for safety.
What facts are most often wrong in obituaries?
The most common obituary errors are misspelled names, wrong or omitted survivors, incorrect service times, and the wrong date or age. Because obituaries become a permanent public record, a second proofreader and a final read against source documents catch most of these before publication.