African American Funeral Programs Online

Tony Bandy looks at a fantastic online resource (page 12)

For most of us, funerals are a time of many emotions as well as a remembrance of things past, of relationships as well as people. For genealogists, this can also be a time of connections, of learning about stories and long lost family members. One way this can be done is by examining the funeral guide or “program” that’s usually made available during memorial services. It can be a source of births, deaths and other valuable genealogical information. With this in mind, I want to share with you a great online resource that might help you with your own family research project: The African American Funeral Programs from the East Central Georgia Regional Library.

Some Background
Working together in a collaborative partnership with the Digital Library of Georgia and the Eula M. Ramsey Johnson Memorial Funeral Program collection itself, there are over 1,000 funeral programs available for online viewing and research at http://funeral.galileo.usg.edu/funeral/. Digitized to either PDF or picture format, this collection’s time period ranges from the mid-1930s up through the current decade, and both basic and advanced searching tools are available for use. While the collection is extensive and many states are represented, it is not nationwide. Most of the programs are, “… from churches in Augusta, Georgia, and the surrounding area, with a few outliers in other states such as New York and Florida”, according to information contained on the website.

Can You Find It?
Finding resources in the collection is as simple as putting in your search terms and pressing go. Using this basic method first, all of the words in your query will be used and the results returned, if any. If you are not sure of the name, but have other information about the deceased, then you can also browse by name, year of passing, city and even place of the funeral. Browsing by city or funeral site will bring you a list of expandable states and cities. Browsing by year of death will also show an expanded list of dates, helping you to zero in on a particular year. From either of these, you can jump directly to a list of results and start viewing them.

Advanced Search?
Choosing to do an advanced search? There are a host of additional tools for you to use. Ranging from proximity operators, exclusion tools, and even year limits, this can speed up your research and enable you to fine tune your strategy. If you know more personal information about the individual you are looking up, then other options to search by include maiden name and year of birth... to see the rest of this article, subscribe now and request to start with this issue

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