Obituary & Article Requests

Request Copies of Obituaries and Articles

Looking for an obituary or article from a Kalamazoo newspaper but you live outside of West Michigan? KPL’s local history staff can help. Here is what you need to know:

• Requests can be made through the website (form below) or by mail to:
  Kalamazoo Public Library, Local History Room
  315 S. Rose St.
  Kalamazoo, MI 49007
• We have copies of the Kalamazoo Gazette on microfilm going back to 1834 with a gap in the collection during the Civil War years from 1862–1870. Obituaries and death stories have been indexed for most years, however there is a gap in our indexing from 1890 to 1938. You may use the index to determine the exact citation for the obituary or provide us with the full name of the person you are looking for and the approximate death year and we will do the search for you.
• If the person died outside of Kalamazoo County during years not covered by our Kalamazoo Gazette index, meaning that we cannot find a death date using the Kalamazoo County death records, you will need to send an exact date of death before we can perform a search.
• We will search the Kalamazoo Gazette for five days from the date of death.
• You will be informed whether or not we are able to locate the obituary.
• We normally send obituaries out as email attachments (jpg or pdf), however you may choose to receive the obituary by mail if you do not have email.
• There is a $2.00 charge for each obituary or article. For citations that contain more than three pages, additional pages will be charged at fifty cents ($.50) per page. The fee includes postage. There will be no charge if we are unable to find anything.
• All requests for obituaries or articles will require pre-payment.
• Do not send payment until you have been contacted by a local history staff person with the total amount due and an invoice number. Payment can be made online using a credit card or a PayPal account or mailed to the local history room.