The Historical Obituaries Index contains information on obituaries and death notices appearing in the Dayton Daily Journal between 1850 and 1880. This index includes only basic information about the obituary or death notice listed and where it can be found in the newspaper. It does not include the full-text of the obituary. Results are given in order by date, but sorting can be changed by changing the drop-down box at the end of the form.
Access to information in this index is possible through several fields: name, newspaper, volume, issue, page, column, month, day, year, as well as a broad keyword search. A record must match all fields in the search form for it to appear in the results. This makes it important to avoid filling in fields with data that is too narrow or too broad. Search strings that are too narrow will produce no results. Search strings that are too broad will produce a list with too many results to sort through. Users will probably find a mixture of searching by name, date or keyword the most useful for their needs.
Information on how to search each field is below:
This field provides users with full Boolean search capabilities of the most useful fields. It simultaneously searches the name, subject and notes fields for your search string.
Search strings can include the AND, OR, NOT operators. Using the AND operator between two terms will require that both search terms appear in the record. For example, searching by the phrase 'Elizabeth AND Cook' will select all records with both the word 'Elizabeth' and 'Cook' in them. The OR operator will select records with either search term in them, so 'Elizabeth OR Cook' will select records with either 'Elizabeth' or 'Cook' in them. Commas may be used in place of the OR operator in search strings. NOT disqualifies records that contain the word following the operator. For example, 'Elizabeth NOT Cook' will disqualify any obituary or death notice that contains the word 'Cook' anywhere in the name, subject or notes fields.
You can also use parentheses and question marks within your search string. Using parentheses and quotations within your search clarifies the order in which the search should be evaulated. Search strings within () parentheses are treated like a single unit and are evaluated first. Search terms outside the parentheses are then evaluated against the results of those inside the parentheses. Quoted words or phrases are searched for in exactly the form you provide them in. This helps resolve problems with words like 'and, or, not' that you don't want to use as an operator. For example, without quotes the search string "war and peace" would be evaluated as a request for obituaries with both the word 'War' and 'Peace' the them. With quotes it would be evaluated as a single phrase which just happens to include the word 'and' in it.
The keyword search field can be searched using two wildcards characters. The star "*" character can be used as a replacement for any number of additional characters. For example, a search for '*Beth*' would find any of the following: 'Elizabeth', 'Beth' or 'Bethany'. You can also use the "?" character within search strings to replace only a single character. For example, "wom?n" would select records with either "woman" or "women" in the record.
Finally, unless you'd like to search for records in exact case-sensitive format, you should always enter your searches in all uppercase or all lowercase format. If you uppercase the first letter of any word in your search statement, it will be taken as though you require that first letter to be uppercased before being selected.
Searching by First and/or Last Name
If you know the name of the person you are looking for, use the First and/or Last Name fields to search by their name. The index will search for records that contain that name regardless of where that name is found. For example, searching by 'Beth' will select records with any of the following names: Beth, Elizabeth, Bethany. If you search using more than one word in a field, the results will have to match that phrase exactly. For example, searching by First Name with 'Elizabeth Myrtle' will only select names with both 'Elizabeth' and 'Myrtle' in the first name in that exact order. If 'Myrtle Elizabeth' was entered as the first name, the record would not be selected.
Many obituaries and death notices use people's nicknames for their first name. For example, the death notice will list "Willie B. Henderson" rather than "William B. Henderson". If you are having trouble finding a name, try shortening it or trying some common nicknames. It is wise to try several variations of a name before giving up on this search.Feel free to match this field up with a keyword search, but remember that doing so means that results must fulfill both requirements. If you aren't sure that the order of the name you entered is correct, it may be better to simply search by keyword.
By default, searches are sorted by date in that order. This can be changed, though. You can also see results in order by Last Name, First Name, Newspaper and Volume. To do this, simply change the "Sort By" drop-down box at the bottom of the form to your desired sort order. Sorting by Volume will cause results to be sorted by volume, issue, page and column in that order.