What Not to Include in an Obituary
A privacy-first checklist for what not to include in an obituary: sensitive identity details, home addresses, exact service timing, financial information, private medical facts, and unverified family conflict.
Quick Answer
Do not include details that help a stranger impersonate the deceased, locate an empty home, pressure grieving relatives, or expose private medical and family information. A good obituary can still be warm, specific, and memorable without publishing every identifying fact.
The safest approach is to keep a private fact sheet for the family and publish only the details that readers need: the name, a broad life context, a few meaningful memories, official service or memorial instructions, and a verified funeral-home or donation link.
Leave These Out Or Handle Them Carefully
Full date of birth and exact birthplace
A full name, birthdate, birthplace, and family names can become identity-verification clues. Use age, month/year, or a broader place when the full detail is not needed.
Safer wording: Born in 1946 in western Pennsylvania.
Home address or empty-house clues
A public address plus a service date can tell strangers where a house may be empty. Keep residential addresses out of the obituary.
Safer wording: A longtime resident of Pittsburgh.
Social Security, maiden-name, and financial details
Never publish Social Security numbers, account information, estate value, insurance details, debts, tax details, or a mother's maiden name.
Safer wording: The family requests privacy while final affairs are handled.
Exact service timing when privacy matters
If the service is public, list the official funeral-home page instead of repeating every logistical detail across social posts and reposted notices.
Safer wording: Service details are available through the funeral home.
Private medical or cause-of-death details
Cause of death is optional. Medical history, addiction history, suicide, violence, disability, or mental-health details should be shared only when the family intentionally chooses that public record.
Safer wording: Died after a long illness, surrounded by family.
Family conflict, blame, or unverified claims
An obituary is a public record that can be copied, indexed, archived, and quoted. Remove accusations, inheritance disputes, and details that living relatives have not confirmed.
Safer wording: Focus on verified facts, relationships, work, service, and one memory.
How To Decide Whether A Detail Belongs
Ask who needs this fact
If a detail only satisfies curiosity, it probably does not belong in the public obituary. Keep it in a private family document instead.
Check whether the fact helps the reader act
Service location, donation instructions, and a funeral-home contact can help readers. A street address, bank detail, or private diagnosis usually does not.
Assume the notice will be copied
Online obituaries can be scraped by other sites, indexed by search engines, shared on social media, and saved in genealogy databases.
Separate the obituary from the fact sheet
Keep a private document with exact names, dates, records, and family contacts. Publish a shorter version that protects living people.
Before Publishing
- Remove exact home addresses, Social Security numbers, financial account details, estate values, passwords, and insurance information.
- Consider age instead of full birthdate, and a general location instead of exact birthplace when privacy risk is high.
- Link to the funeral home or official memorial page instead of reposting service details across many public places.
- Confirm every survivor name, spelling, relationship, and privacy preference before publishing.
- Leave out cause of death unless the family has made a deliberate public decision to include it.
- Watch for fake memorial pages, fake livestream links, debt-collector calls, and unexpected payment requests after the obituary goes online.
Sources And Related Resources
- AARP: bereavement scams and obituary information
Explains how scammers use obituary and funeral information to target grieving families.
- FBI El Paso: bereavement scams warning
Warns families to limit personal facts in obituaries and online memorial posts.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: obituary debt-collector scams
Explains how scammers may use obituaries and legal notices to pose as debt collectors.
- FTC Consumer Advice: identity theft
Official identity-theft reporting and recovery guidance for consumers.
- Experian: obituaries and identity theft
Consumer-credit guidance on how obituary information can enable identity theft after death.
- Trustworthy: details to avoid in an obituary
Practical privacy guidance on personal, financial, and sensitive facts to leave out.
- Green Cremation Texas: what not to include
Funeral-home writing guide that warns against publishing details that can expose identity or burglary risk.
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 Privacy FAQ
What should you not put in an obituary?
Leave out the deceased's full date of birth combined with mother's maiden name, home address, daily routines of surviving relatives, financial details, and exact times when the family home will be empty during the service. These details are commonly used in identity theft and burglary targeting grieving families.
Should you include the cause of death in an obituary?
The cause of death is optional and never required. Many families include it for closure or public-health reasons, but it is acceptable to omit it entirely — especially for sensitive causes. You can simply state the date of death, or use general phrasing like "after a long illness."
Is it safe to list the home address in an obituary?
No. Listing a home address — the deceased's or a survivor's — is a known safety risk, because obituaries publicly signal when a home may be empty during services. Direct condolences to the funeral home, a P.O. box, or an online memorial page instead of a residential address.
Can obituaries be used for identity theft?
Yes. Scammers combine an obituary's full name, birth date, mother's maiden name, and hometown with public records to open accounts or file fraudulent tax returns. Reduce the risk by omitting the full birth date and maiden name, and notify credit bureaus and the Social Security Administration promptly.