How to write an obituary for a parent, with examples

Most families write the obituary within a day or two of the death, often to a deadline that same evening. This guide sets out how to write an obituary in that time: what goes in and in what order, how to check each fact against the papers at home, and what newspapers charge. Then come three complete examples, a short death notice and a template.

What an obituary is

An obituary is a public notice of a death that tells the person's life in brief and gives the time and place of the funeral. Three kinds appear in a newspaper, and the family writes the first two.

What to include in an obituary

Readers expect a set order. Leave out any part that does not suit your family; a death notice keeps only the news, a line of family and the services.

How to write an obituary, step by step

1. Ask about the deadline and the price. The funeral home usually places the notice and can tell you both.
2. Gather the papers. Certificates, discharge papers, naturalization papers and passports settle most facts.
3. Write the opening sentence, which carries the news.
4. Tell the life in order in four to six sentences, with one or two exact details, such as a saying or a habit.
5. List the family, closest first, as set out below.
6. Add the services and donations, each service with its day, date, time and place, and the charity by its exact name.
7. Cut a short version for the newspaper. Write the full obituary first, for the funeral home's website, then keep the news, a line or two of family, and the services.
8. Have a brother or sister read it for misspelled names and anyone left out, and keep a copy once it runs.

How to start an obituary

The first sentence gives the full name, the age, the town and the date of death. Some openings in common use:

• "Margaret Ann Kowalski, 87, of Clarks Summit, died peacefully at home on March 3, 2026."
• "Our mother, Helen Park, died on May 19, 2026, at the age of 79."
• "Leah Gittel Rosen, a"h, of Monsey, was niftar on February 11, 2026, 24 Shevat 5786."

"Died" is plain and always correct, and "passed away" is as common. The cause of death is optional, as the questions below explain.

How to list family in an obituary

The family is listed closest first: the husband or wife, the children in order of birth, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, then brothers and sisters. A child's husband or wife goes beside the child, in parentheses or with "and her husband". Stepchildren go with the other children, or just after them, as the family speaks of them.

Past ten or so, most families count grandchildren rather than name them. Relatives who died before the parent come last, after "predeceased by" or "preceded in death by".

How to end an obituary

The obituary ends with the practical lines: the visiting hours, the funeral and the burial, then the charity in place of flowers.

Getting the facts right

An obituary is often the first public record of a life, and the one grandchildren will search for. Most errors come from memory: a maiden name spelled as it sounds, a middle name taken for a first name, a birth year off by one, a town given by a later name. The papers in a parent's desk settle most of them.

Where two papers disagree, use the one made closest to the event, or write "about".

If a veteran's discharge papers are lost, the National Archives' National Personnel Records Center sends copies of the DD Form 214 to next of kin, generally free for discharges less than 62 years ago, and accepts a published obituary as proof of death.

Give a town that has changed its name or country as it was then, with what it is now: "born in Lwów, Poland, now Lviv, Ukraine." Grandparents' obituaries often name forgotten towns, and how to find the town your family came from explains how to place such a town on a modern map; how to check that a record belongs to your family helps when an obituary does not match.

Example obituaries for a mother and a father

The examples on this page were written for this guide about invented people. Take the order and the plain style, and put your parent's own details in.

An obituary for a mother

Margaret Ann Kowalski, née Doyle, 87, of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, died peacefully at home on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, with her family beside her.

Peggy, as everyone knew her, was born in Scranton in 1938 to Thomas and Mary Doyle. She was a maternity nurse for 31 years, most of them on the night shift, and liked to say she had held half the babies in Lackawanna County. In 1960 she married Edward Kowalski, a mail carrier. She sang in her parish choir for fifty years and wrote to each of her grandchildren on every birthday.

She is survived by her husband of 65 years, Edward; her children, Anne Marie Hughes (Robert), Michael Kowalski (Lisa) and Kathleen Kowalski; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren; and her sister, Joan Brennan. She was predeceased by her son, Thomas, in 1989, and by her brothers, James and Francis Doyle.

Friends may call at the Hartley Funeral Home, Clarks Summit, on Friday, March 6, from 4 to 7 p.m. A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, March 7, at 10 a.m. at her parish church. In place of flowers, donations may be made to the hospice that cared for her.

What makes it work. Her maiden name is in the first sentence, so friends who knew her as Peggy Doyle will find it. Two exact details, the night shift and the birthday letters, say more than a list of virtues.

An obituary for a father who came from another country

Thomas Joseph Walsh, 92, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, died on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Milton, where he had lived for two years.

He was born in 1934 outside Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland, the eldest of seven children of Patrick and Bridget Walsh. In 1957 he sailed for Boston with a cousin's address in his pocket. He served two years in the US Army and became an American citizen in 1961, the year he married Eileen Burke, a nurse from Galway he met at a dance in Dudley Square. For forty years he was a union ironworker on the city's hospitals and bridges, and he liked to drive his grandchildren past them.

He is survived by his children, Patrick (Maureen), Mary Carney (Dennis), Joseph, Brigid and Kevin (Ana); fourteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; and his brother Michael and sister Nora, both of Castlebar. He was predeceased by his wife of 54 years, Eileen, in 2015.

Visiting hours will be held on Thursday, June 11, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Keane Funeral Home, Dorchester, and a funeral Mass on Friday, June 12, at 10 a.m. at his parish church. Donations in his memory may be made to a charity that helps new immigrants find work.

The same obituary, cut to a death notice for the newspaper:

WALSH, Thomas Joseph, 92, of Dorchester, June 9, 2026. Born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland. Husband of the late Eileen (Burke). Father of Patrick, Mary Carney, Joseph, Brigid and Kevin. Also survived by 14 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren, and his brother Michael and sister Nora. Visiting hours Thursday, 4 to 8 p.m., Keane Funeral Home, Dorchester. Funeral Mass Friday, 10 a.m.

What makes it work. The hardest facts in an immigrant's obituary, the place of birth and the years of arrival and citizenship, come from the old passport and naturalization certificate. The short notice keeps what a reader needs to come to the funeral, at about a third of the price.

An obituary template to fill in

[Full name], née [maiden name], [age], of [town], died on [day and date]. [She] was born in [town, country] in [year] to [father] and [mother].

[Schooling, work and military service, with years.] In [year] [she] married [name], and they made their home in [town]. [One or two exact details about what mattered to her.]

[She] is survived by [husband or wife]; [children in order of birth, with their husbands or wives]; [number] grandchildren and [number] great-grandchildren; and [brothers and sisters]. [She] was predeceased by [names].

[Visiting hours, funeral and burial, each with day, date, time and place.] In place of flowers, donations may be made to [charity].

An obituary for a husband or wife, a brother, or yourself

A widow or widower can write in the first person, "my husband of 52 years", or in the third person with their own name among the family. Either is correct. For a brother or sister, name the parents early, since many readers place a family by them, and count the nieces and nephews.

Many people write their own obituary in advance and leave it with their will. It spares the family a hard evening and keeps facts no one else may know, such as a mother's maiden name or a grandparent's town.

Writing an obituary for a Jewish parent

The order is the same, with a few additions. Customs differ between communities, so follow your own, and where you are unsure, ask your rav.

• The Hebrew name, in transliteration, with the father's name as it will appear on the stone: Leah Gittel bas Mordechai, or Yosef ben Avraham.
• Of blessed memory. After the name families write z"l, for zichrono or zichronah livracha, may his or her memory be a blessing, or a"h, for alav or aleha hashalom, peace be upon him or her.
• The Hebrew date of death, beside the ordinary date. A Hebrew date runs from nightfall to nightfall, so a death after dark takes the next day's date.
• Where the family is sitting shiva, with the hours for visitors. Some families give the street address only to people who ask.
• A tzedakah in place of flowers, since most rabbis discourage flowers at a Jewish funeral.

An example for a Jewish mother, written for this guide:

Leah Gittel Rosen, a"h (Leah Gittel bas Mordechai), of Monsey, New York, was niftar on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, 24 Shevat 5786. She was 91. Born in Williamsburg to Mordechai and Sara Weiss, she taught in Bais Yaakov schools for forty-one years. In 1955 she married Yaakov Rosen, z"l, who was niftar in 2009.

She is survived by her children, Rabbi Moshe and Chani Rosen of Lakewood, Esther and Dovid Klein of Monsey, and Chaim and Rochel Rosen of Jerusalem; by more than forty grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and by her brother, Yisroel Weiss. The family is sitting shiva at the Klein home in Monsey until Wednesday morning, February 18. In place of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Bais Yaakov where she taught.

Where to publish an obituary, and what it costs

The funeral home usually posts the obituary on its website and places the notice in the papers the family chooses, passing on the paper's charge. Under the Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule, the notice is then a cash advance item on the itemized statement, and if the home adds a charge for buying it, or keeps a discount, the statement must say so.

Prices from each paper's own pages. Rates change, and each extra day in print is charged again.

At the Tampa Bay Times' rates, Thomas Walsh's full obituary above would fill about 60 column lines and cost about $860 for one day with a photograph. The death notice cut from it, about 20 lines, would cost about $290 without one.

How to get an obituary in the newspaper

Ask the funeral home to place it, or use the obituary page on the paper's own website. Papers verify the death and take payment in advance, and deadlines come early: the Tampa Bay Times needs a notice approved and paid by 1 p.m. the day before it runs.

What an obituary leaves out

An obituary holds a few hundred words, and most of them go to names and dates. The rest of a life does not fit: the town the family came from and why they left it, and what the records say about the people who came before.

Zichronos researches a family in the archives that hold its records, then publishes its history as a finished hardcover book, starting from the same papers this guide asks you to check. What a memorial book is compares the books families make after a death, and a memorial book in thirty days explains what can be ready by a date. Family history book examples shows a finished book page by page, what a family history book costs compares the ways to make one, and How we work sets out the steps.

For the funeral, see how to write a eulogy and eulogy examples, and the rest of memorials and tributes.

Sources: the obituary rates of the Tampa Bay Times and The Washington Post, checked October 2026; the Federal Trade Commission, Complying with the Funeral Rule; the National Archives on veterans' records; the IRS and the FBI on identity theft after a death; My Jewish Learning on honorifics and flowers; Chabad.org on the names on a stone and the Jewish day.