Mercury News (San Jose, California) Newspaper Obituaries (1985 - Current)

The Mercury News obituary archives can play a key role if you are interested in your family tree. In the past, people had to look through physical newspapers, but now it's simple to search online for the stories of your ancestors.

Why you might want to check out local obituaries in the Mercury News:

• They can help you discover various branches of your family tree.
• They can enable you to connect with distant relatives.
• They can bring to life the stories of your ancestors.
• Our extensive online database provides access to nearly 150 years of local history, and uniquely, 95% of these records are exclusive to our site and cannot be found on other online services.

How to Search for Obituaries in the Mercury News

Just type in the last name of the relative you’re curious about and hit the “Search” button. It’s a great first step in finding more about your ancestors.

You can also download our free guide, “Tips for Searching Titles,” for extra help.

If you want to go deeper, here’s how to do an advanced search:

• Enter the full name of your relative. If you know their middle name, include it to get more specific results.
• Add a keyword like a school or town that’s related to their life to narrow down your search.
• Leave out certain words to avoid results that aren’t related to your family.
• Use a specific time range, since we have records going back 150 years.
• Change how you sort the results—you can look at the closest matches or the newest or oldest entries first.

Here are some ways to make your search better:

• Start with what you know about recent family members to trace back to older ones.
• Look for initials in older records, as full names weren’t always used.
• If you’re looking for information on a female relative, try searching under her husband’s name.
• Check for common misspellings, as names weren’t always spelled correctly in the past.
  

You can also look into other records for more clues:

• Archives of U.S. newspapers
• Records of births, marriages, and deaths
• Lists of passengers and government publications
• Social Security Death Index
• Archives on cultural and ancestry groups like African-American, Hispanic, Irish, Native American, German-American, Italian, and Jewish-American genealogy.

Getting started in GenealogyBank is simple and will allow you to better understand your family’s history. You can expand your research by visiting the GenealogyBank Learning Resource by clicking here.