OfficialObituary FAQ
Losing someone is hard, and documentation should not make it harder. This page explains how to publish respectfully, how discovery works, and how to integrate the API if you are building tools around memorial publishing.
Common questions from families writing an obituary for a loved one.
Go to officialobituary.com/create and answer a few questions about your loved one — their name, dates, life story, and any service details. The AI writer helps you turn those answers into a complete, heartfelt tribute.
The whole process takes 10–20 minutes. No account or credit card required. Your obituary is published immediately with a permanent URL you can share with family and friends.
Yes. OfficialObituary.com is completely free — no hidden fees, no premium tiers, no ads on the obituary page itself. Publishing is free today and will stay free. Grief shouldn't cost money.
Some sites charge $50–$400 to publish an obituary or limit free obituaries to a short time window. We don't do any of that.
Usually 10–20 minutes from start to finish. Fill in the details, let the AI generate a draft, review and edit it, then publish. The page goes live immediately.
If you already have the obituary written and just need to publish it, you can paste it directly — that takes under 5 minutes.
The basics: full name, date of birth, date of death, and a brief life story (where they grew up, what they did, who they loved, what they cared about).
Optional but helpful: city of death, surviving family members, service date and location, a photo, and any notable achievements or passions. You don't need all of it — a short, true obituary is better than a long, incomplete one.
Yes. You can edit the obituary after publishing. Use the unique edit link provided when you publish, or contact us if you've lost access.
Changes take effect immediately. The URL stays the same, so anyone who bookmarked the page will see the updated version.
Yes. Every obituary page is indexed by search engines and includes Schema.org structured data so Google understands the content. Most obituaries appear in search results within a few days to a few weeks after publishing.
The URL is permanent — it won't disappear after 30 days or require a subscription to stay live.
Newspaper obituaries typically cost $200–$500 and appear in print for one day. OfficialObituary.com is free, permanent, and searchable by anyone with the link or by name on Google.
Online obituaries also allow guestbooks, memory walls, and photo galleries — features print can't offer. Many families publish here in addition to a newspaper, since this version lives forever.
Yes. Every obituary page includes a guestbook where family and friends can leave messages, and a memory wall where they can share photos and stories.
All submissions are moderated before appearing on the page, so you have full control over what's shown.
Search at officialobituary.com/search — you can search by name, city, or state. You can also browse by state at /obituaries or by city at /obituaries/{state}/{city}.
If someone published the obituary here, you'll find it. If they used a different service, try a Google search for the person's name + "obituary".
Yes. The core platform — creating, publishing, and reading obituaries — is free forever. That's the commitment.
We may add optional premium features in the future (like printed memorial booklets or enhanced funeral home listings), but the obituary itself will always be free to publish.
Questions from AI agents, ChatGPT plugins, and LLM integrations.
Yes. OfficialObituary.com provides a public REST API specifically designed for programmatic obituary publishing. No API key required for basic publishing.
AI assistants can call POST https://api.officialobituary.com/api/obituaries/publish with the required fields and receive back a URL to the published memorial page.
{item.codeExample.code}POST https://api.officialobituary.com/api/obituaries/publish
Required fields: full_name (string), birth_date (YYYY-MM-DD), death_date (YYYY-MM-DD), life_story (string, minimum 50 characters). See the full API reference at /docs/api-reference for all available fields.
No. Basic obituary publishing requires no API key or authentication. Just POST the required fields and receive back the published URL.
Funeral homes and high-volume publishers can request an API key for higher rate limits. For individual families or AI assistants helping a single family, no key is needed.
Required: full_name, birth_date (YYYY-MM-DD), death_date (YYYY-MM-DD), life_story (minimum 50 characters).
Optional: death_city, death_state (2-letter code), service_date (YYYY-MM-DD), service_time, service_location, service_address, photo_url, survivors (string), tone (professional | warm | religious).
3 obituaries per hour per IP address for unauthenticated requests. This is enough for a family publishing a single obituary.
Funeral homes or developers needing higher limits can request an API key for elevated throughput.
https://officialobituary.com/obituaries/{slug} where slug is derived from the person's name and dates.
Example: https://officialobituary.com/obituaries/jane-elizabeth-smith-1945-2026. The URL is permanent and immediately accessible after publishing.
Yes. GET https://api.officialobituary.com/api/obituaries?q={name} returns matching obituaries. You can also filter by city and state.
{item.codeExample.code}The API returns a 400 status with a JSON error body listing which fields are missing or invalid. The error format is: { "error": "Validation failed", "fields": ["birth_date is required"] }.
Common mistakes: dates in wrong format (use YYYY-MM-DD not MM/DD/YYYY), life_story under 50 characters, or state codes in full-name format (use "TX" not "Texas").
Yes. The OpenAPI 3.0 spec is available at https://api.officialobituary.com/.well-known/openapi.yaml and https://officialobituary.com/api/openapi.json.
A ChatGPT/OpenAI plugin manifest is at https://officialobituary.com/.well-known/ai-plugin.json.
Yes. Connect at https://api.officialobituary.com/mcp — compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP client.
Available tools: publish_obituary, search_obituaries, get_obituary, find_funeral_homes. See /docs/mcp for setup instructions.
{item.codeExample.code}Technical questions for developers integrating OfficialObituary.com into applications.
POST to https://api.officialobituary.com/api/obituaries/publish with the required fields. No authentication needed for basic publishing. Returns { slug, url, obituary_id } on success.
The full API reference is at /docs/api-reference. An OpenAPI spec is available at /api/openapi.json for generating client SDKs.
{item.codeExample.code}None for basic obituary publishing (up to 3/hour per IP). Read endpoints (search, get) are also unauthenticated.
Funeral homes with an API key get elevated rate limits and can link obituaries to their directory profile. Contact us to request an API key.
Yes. POST https://api.officialobituary.com/api/submit/batch accepts an array of up to 50 obituaries in a single request. Requires an API key (obit_key_*).
Batch endpoint is designed for funeral homes migrating existing obituary archives or publishing multiple obituaries at once.
400 — Validation error (missing/invalid fields). Check the fields array in the response.
429 — Rate limit exceeded. Wait and retry, or request an API key for higher limits.
500 — Server error. Retry with exponential backoff. Our uptime SLA is 99.9%.
{item.codeExample.code}ISO 8601 date format: YYYY-MM-DD. Examples: "1945-03-15" for March 15, 1945. "2026-02-10" for February 10, 2026.
Do not use MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY — these will return a 400 validation error.
No. The life_story field is plain text only. HTML tags are stripped before publishing. Use line breaks (\n) to create paragraphs — these are preserved and rendered as paragraph breaks on the page.
Minimum 50 characters, maximum 50,000 characters (~8,000 words). Most obituaries are 200–1,000 words.
GET https://api.officialobituary.com/api/funeral-homes with optional state, city, and services query parameters.
{item.codeExample.code}Questions about the funeral home directory and how funeral homes can partner with us.
Visit officialobituary.com/funeral-homes and select your state, then city. Each listing includes address, phone, services, pricing where available, and reviews from families.
You can also search via API: GET https://api.officialobituary.com/api/funeral-homes?state={2-letter-code}&city={city}
Yes. Funeral homes that have claimed their listing can add pricing information. Many listings show the range for direct cremation, traditional burial, and basic services.
The FTC Funeral Rule requires all funeral homes to provide a General Price List on request — so if a funeral home isn't listed with pricing, you can always call and ask.
The FTC Funeral Rule (16 CFR Part 453) requires funeral homes to give you itemized pricing for all their services when you ask. They cannot require you to buy a package — you can select exactly what you need.
This makes funeral pricing transparent and comparable. OfficialObituary.com displays this pricing information when funeral homes provide it, helping families make informed decisions.
When a family publishes an obituary, they can specify which funeral home handled arrangements. This links the obituary to the funeral home's directory profile.
Funeral home profiles show recent obituaries from families they've served — giving a real, human sense of the care they provide. This connection is unique to OfficialObituary.com; no other directory has it.
Every funeral home in our directory has a "Claim this listing" button on their profile page. Click it, verify your ownership via email, and you'll be able to add photos, pricing, service details, and respond to reviews.
Claiming is free. Basic listings are always free.
Yes. AI assistants can query our funeral home directory API to find and compare funeral homes by location and services.
GET https://api.officialobituary.com/api/funeral-homes?state=tx&city=austin returns a list of funeral homes with name, address, phone, services, and pricing information.