Dead-a-base

Simple Search:

Last Name: First Name: Date of Death: All1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1915 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Search

Additional Resources: HeritageQuest

Due to the loss of $80,000 in state funding, the response time for this service has been severely impacted. Staff time has been cut in this area so response time will increase. We encourage you to contact your state legislators to request that funding to libraries be increased.

What is the Dead-a-Base?
The Dead-a-Base is a database index of the obituary and death notice listings as they appeared in the Latrobe Bulletin from their first issue December 18, 1902 to the present.

The index contains names, dates of death and dates on which the obituary appeared. This index does not contain the text of the information contained within an obituary. It simply allows researchers to determine if any obituary or death notice appeared in the Bulletin and what date it appeared on. In order to access information contained within an actual obituary, you will still need to access our microfilm and cd archive of the Bulletin.

If you cannot come to the library in person to access the archive, please see our section on Fees.

Where do the index listings come from?
A dedicated squadron of library volunteers, lead by Milton Radman, is painstakingly hand-entering information from 100 years of obituaries as they appeared in the Latrobe Bulletin. These volunteers are searching literally page by page, day by day, through every issue available on microfilm and cd and entering the names and dates into the computer. From there it is reformatted and entered into this database. At this time, the obituaries are not available in digital form.

What dates are indexed?
Our volunteers are working diligently to index the entire run of the Latrobe Bulletin. To see the years entered, view the popup menu above labeled "Date of Death."

Other years will be added as they are completed. We estimate the Dead-a-Base will be complete sometime in 2012.

What information is available in this database?
Currently, the volunteers are only entering names as they appear in the paper, dates of death, and dates on which the obituary occurred.

If you need more information, such as that which is typically contained in the full text of an obituary, you can access the microfilm directly to obtain more. If you cannot come to the library to use our microfilm or cds in person, please see our Fees section regarding mail service.

Obtaining Copies/Fees
We charge twenty-five cents per page to print copies of microfilm and CDs in-house.

If you cannot come to the library yourself, and would like a staff member to print and mail the copy to you, we charge $2.00 for the search and $1.00 for each page printed for a total of $3.00 for the first name. Additional names will be billed at $1.00 per printed page. At this time the microfilm is not digitized so we cannot email or scan notices. This cost includes the postage and you will be billed after the search has been completed. Please do not send money until you have been notified of the fee amount. Once payment has been received the notices will be mailed. The fee for a name not yet indexed is $3.00 per name but we cannot guarantee a search result. Checks, money orders, and cash are accepted. The library cannot take credit cards at this time.

You may email requests to: askadams@hotmail.com. An acknowledgement email will be sent by a staff member to confirm the request within five business days. Please be aware that some email programs may block the reply as spam--you must add our address to your address book or check your junk email.

To send payment or requests by regular mail, please use the following address:

Adams Memorial Library
ATTN. Kathy Tobolewski
1112 Ligonier St.
Latrobe, PA 15650

We will do our best to process your request as quickly as possible. Due to the loss of funding the library has had to cut the hours of staff available to print the notices from the microfilm. Since the microfilm is not digitized a staff member must manually go through the microfilm to find the notice or obituary and print it. However, please be aware that heavy in-house usage of the microfilm reader may delay our response. Notices are usually processed in 3-6 months depending on the volume of requests.

I can't find the obituary I'm looking for. What do I do now?
Please visit our site again. We are working to improve the power and effectiveness of our search engine. A search that has no results today may return the item you are looking for after we complete the upgrade.

If you are searching for the obituary information of someone who died during a year which has not been indexed yet, we can perform a manual search of the microfilm directly. Please refer to the Fees section.

Please note also: the Latrobe Bulletin did not necessarily run an obituary or death notice for every individual. At present, Bulletin is the only newspaper indexed in the Dead-a-Base.

Questions?
If you have questions about the Dead-a-Base you can email us at askadams@hotmail.com.

Disclaimers
The contents of the Dead-a-base is the sole property of Adams Memorial Library and may not be used or reproduced without express written and prior permission.

Adams Memorial Library is not connected with the Latrobe Bulletin. The Library takes sole responsibility for the contents of the Dead-a-Base database. Likewise, the Library is not responsible for the contents of obituaries or death notices as printed in the Bulletin.

Names and dates are transcribed as they appeared in the Latrobe Bulletin. While we do our best to create a correct index, we cannot be responsible for any errors printed in the Latrobe Bulletin. We do not verify the information in the Latrobe Bulletin from any other source. If you find an error in our index, please report it to us at: askadams@hotmail.com or call the library at 724-539-1972.