New Hampshire’s first newspaper is still published today, and the state became the last to join Chronicling America in 2023. Its older death notices are spread across weekly town papers, many still on microfilm.
New Hampshire obituaries in historic newspapers
The New-Hampshire Gazette was first printed in Portsmouth in 1756. Like other colonial papers it reported deaths briefly, usually in a column of local and regional news. Through the 1800s, weekly papers in Concord, Keene, Dover, Exeter, Manchester and Nashua carried death notices for their surrounding towns, often with the age and parents of the deceased.
Manchester and Nashua drew large French-Canadian communities to the mills in the late 1800s, and French-language papers served them into the 1900s. These are worth searching for Franco-American families whose deaths may be missing from English-language papers.
Dartmouth College leads the state’s newspaper digitization in partnership with the New Hampshire State Library, the New Hampshire Historical Society and the University of New Hampshire. The first titles added to Chronicling America include the New Hampshire Gazette and The Dartmouth.
Where to find New Hampshire obituaries
Digitized New Hampshire newspapers
- New Hampshire newspapers on Chronicling America — Library of Congress guide to the New Hampshire titles digitized so far and how to search them.
Archives and libraries
- New Hampshire State Library — Newspaper microfilm and genealogy reference for the whole state.
- New Hampshire Newspapers, FamilySearch Research Wiki — Volunteer-maintained guide to New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire
- 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.