The Kansas Historical Society has collected nearly every Kansas newspaper since 1875 and has put most of them online. Much of the collection is free for anyone, and Kansas residents get free access to all of it.
Kansas obituaries in historic newspapers
The Shawnee Sun, printed in 1835 at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in the Shawnee language, was the first newspaper in what became Kansas. The Kansas Weekly Herald began in Leavenworth in 1854, the year the territory opened, and papers on both sides of the Bleeding Kansas conflict reported its deaths.
Cattle towns, railroad towns and homesteading communities each started their own weeklies. Kansas also had Black papers in Topeka, Lawrence and Kansas City, Kansas, and in Exoduster towns such as Nicodemus, as well as German, Swedish and Mennonite publications.
The Kansas Historical Society’s collection is hosted on Newspapers.com. A large share of it, especially the older papers, is open to everyone without a login, and Kansans can verify residency with a driver’s license or state ID to search all of it for free.
Where to find Kansas obituaries
Digitized Kansas newspapers
- Kansas Digital Newspapers, Kansas Historical Society — Free access to millions of pages of Kansas newspapers.
- Free access for Kansans — How Kansas residents get free access to Kansas newspapers and genealogy databases.
Archives and libraries
- Kansas Memory — The Kansas Historical Society’s digital archive of Kansas records and images.
- Kansas Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to Kansas 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 Kansas 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 Kansas
- 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.