How to write a death notice

A death notice is not an obituary. It is the short, factual announcement — usually a paid classified in a newspaper or on a funeral director's site — that tells people someone has died and when the service is. An obituary is the longer piece about their life.

Most families need the notice first, quickly, and often at a bad moment.

What it has to contain

Five things, in roughly this order:

1. The name. Full name, and the name they were actually called. "NOLAN, Patricia Anne (Pat)".
2. When they died, and often where, and sometimes how — "peacefully", "suddenly", "after a long illness". Families vary on how much to say and all of it is optional.
3. Their closest family — spouse, children, grandchildren. Usually named, sometimes with partners in brackets.
4. The service details — where, what day, what time. Or "private, by invitation" if that is the choice. If there is a memorial page, the details can live there too, for the people who missed the paper.
5. What the family would like — flowers, or donations to a named charity, or nothing at all.

A template

NOLAN, Patricia Anne (Pat). On 17 May 2026, peacefully at home, aged 72. Dearly loved wife of Barry. Much loved mother of Anna, Michael and Ruth, and grandmother of seven. A service will be held at St Matthew's on Friday 22 May at 11am, followed by private cremation. In lieu of flowers, donations to the local hospice would be appreciated.

That is a complete notice. Adapt the wording; the structure holds.

Practical things worth knowing

• They are charged by the line or the word, and they are not cheap. Every extra sentence has a price, which is part of why the phrasing is so compressed.
• Deadlines are early. Papers usually want notices a day or two ahead. Your funeral director will normally place it for you and knows the cutoffs.
• Check the spelling of every name — this is the single most common regret, and it cannot be corrected once it has printed.
• Think before publishing an address. A notice announcing an empty house at a known date and time is, unfortunately, read by people other than mourners.

If you also need the longer piece

The notice announces; the obituary remembers. If you have to write both, do the notice first — it is short and has a deadline — and let the obituary take the time it needs.

Everkept's obituary writer walks you through the longer one a question at a time and puts it in the usual order. It is free, needs no account, and nothing in it is written by a machine — it simply arranges what you have said.