Idaho’s first newspaper appeared in 1862. The Idaho Digital Newspaper Project has made more than 80 historic Idaho papers free to search, and the Idaho State Archives keeps obituary indexes for early papers.
Idaho obituaries in historic newspapers
The Golden Age was printed in Lewiston in 1862, during the gold rush that led to Idaho Territory the next year. Boise’s Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman followed in 1864, and the Statesman remains the state’s best-known paper.
Mining camps in the Boise Basin, the Silver Valley and elsewhere supported short-lived papers that recorded mining deaths and accidents. Mormon settlement in southeastern Idaho and later irrigation projects on the Snake River Plain brought farm towns with their own weeklies.
The Idaho Digital Newspaper Project, a partnership of the Idaho State Archives with the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, covers papers from 1863 to 1925 on Chronicling America. The Idaho State Archives also keeps an index to obituaries in the Idaho Statesman and other early papers and will search for obituaries on request.
Where to find Idaho obituaries
Obituary and death indexes
- Searchable Catalogs, Idaho State Historical Society — The Idaho Digital Newspaper Project and other searchable indexes at the Idaho State Archives.
Archives and libraries
- Idaho State Historical Society — Idaho State Archives research services, including obituary lookups.
- Idaho Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to Idaho newspaper archives, indexes and microfilm, with county-by-county links.
Nationwide newspaper archives
- Chronicling America, Library of Congress — Free digitized newspapers from every state. Narrow a search to Idaho and the years you need.
- Google News Archive — Free scans of hundreds of older newspapers, browsable by title and date.
- Internet Archive newspapers — Free digitized newspapers and microfilm uploaded by libraries.
- FamilySearch — Free obituary indexes, death records and the Social Security Death Index (free account).
- Find a Grave — Volunteer-built cemetery memorials, many with transcribed obituaries.
- Newspapers.com — Large subscription archive of U.S. papers. Many public libraries offer free access.
- GenealogyBank — Subscription archive of historic newspapers and modern obituaries.
- Legacy.com — Obituaries published since about 2000 in most U.S. daily newspapers.
Tips for finding an obituary in Idaho
- Pin down the date and place first. A death index or death certificate gives the exact date and county, and then you only need to search the local papers for the following week or two.
- Search more than one town. Obituaries often ran in the paper where the person was born or had lived before, not just where they died. Small-town weeklies sometimes published a notice weeks later.
- Look beyond the word “obituary.” Older papers reported deaths under headings like “Died,” “Deaths,” local news and personals columns, funeral notices and cards of thanks. See death notices vs. obituaries.
- Try every spelling. Search initials, nicknames and misspellings, and for married women in older papers, search the husband’s name (“Mrs. John Smith”). Digitized text often misreads old type.
- Ask a librarian. Many public libraries and state archives will look up an obituary for free or a small fee, and newspaper microfilm can often be borrowed through interlibrary loan.