Obituary & people search
Search North Dakota Obituaries
Look up obituaries, death records and people by name.
- Search by name
- All 50 states + D.C.
Obituaries in another state
Obituary guide
How to find an obituary in North Dakota
For a recent death, start with the funeral home's website and the local paper's obituary page. For an older obituary, try NDSU's Fargo Forum index and the State Historical Society of North Dakota, which keeps newspapers from Dakota Territory days to the present.
What to have ready
- Full name, including a maiden name or nickname
- Approximate date and place of death (city and county)
- Age at death or birth year
- Names of close relatives (spouse, children, parents)
Tip: Knowing the county and town narrows the search more than anything else, because most obituaries ran in the hometown weekly.
Where to look, by when the person died
| When the person died | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Last few years | Funeral home websites; newspaper obituary pages (listed below), several of them hosted on Legacy.com |
| 1990s to recent decades | NDSU's Fargo Forum Obituary Index (complete for November 1982–1995); library newspaper databases through the North Dakota State Library |
| Older or historic | State Historical Society newspaper collection and microfilm; Chronicling America (nearly 400,000 North Dakota pages); Digital Horizons; the Fargo Forum index for October 1892–1909; county genealogical societies |
| Official death record | The state's public death index leaves out deaths in the last 12 months. See how to order a North Dakota death record. |
Major newspapers' obituary pages
- Bismarck Tribune: opens on Legacy.com
- The Forum (Fargo)
- Grand Forks Herald
- Minot Daily News
Each page loaded without a login on our check. Older news archives may need a subscription.
Libraries and archives
- State Historical Society: newspapers: North Dakota's Newspaper Law of 1905 helped build the collection.
- State Archives newspaper requests: send a written request with the fee.
- Genealogy sources at the State Archives: a Newspaper Abstract File and the North Dakota Necrology 1920–1926 in the reading room.
- NDSU Fargo Forum Obituary Index: more than 70,000 names
- North Dakota State Library
Timeline expectations
- Recent obituaries appear when the family or funeral home publishes them, so timing varies.
- The Fargo Forum index is complete for October 1892–1909 and November 1982–1995, and partial for other years.
- Statewide death records go back to 1881. The online index skips the most recent 12 months.
Tips
- For an obituary search, the State Archives needs the exact month, day, year and place. You can ask for up to three items per letter. For more, borrow the microfilm through interlibrary loan at your local library.
- Ancestry is available at any North Dakota library through the State Library.
- Look up the exact date of death in the public death index first. The State Archives needs that date before it can search the microfilm.
Last verified:
Note: Coverage years, fees and web addresses are set by the libraries, archives and newspapers listed and can change. PublicLibraries.com is not affiliated with them.