As a follow-on to the Cemetery Project, the Obituary Project Committee went about the process of screening available Acadia Parish newspapers, hardcopy and microfilm, on file in the Acadia Parish Library and elsewhere. They have been researching, copying, cutting, organizing, pasting, and indexing reports of death from the newspapers published in Crowley, Rayne and Church Point. Each book includes an index. Work on this project continues.

Meantime, we have been developing an electronic database of these records to aid researchers in their search. The indices from each of the obituary books have been scanned-in and edited to a similar file format. The records are arranged alphabetically by name within the respective year blocks and cross to the appropriate book and page where the obituary is located. These files are not complete in many respects (e.g., scanning errors, duplicate records, missing information), but, absent a better alternative, we believe users will find them useful in locating obituaries published in Acadia Parish newspapers-- especially our members living outside the commuting area of the parish.

Click here for Obits through 2013 in Alphabetical Order

These draft files are part of a building block for a larger project aimed at abstracting and publishing a wider array of information from the newspaper obituary. Since that effort will take several years, we hope you will be understanding when coming across errors in these files. In that regard, if you are able to fill in any missing information, especially married and maiden names, please let us hear from you.

The naming convention for referencing the obituary volume(s) containing the obituary is essentially an abbreviated newspaper name or combination of names, and volume year(s), followed by page number. Location codes are as follows:

• ACSIG for Acadia Signal
• CR or CPS for Crowley newspapers, such as Crowley Signal, or Crowley Daily Signal, or Crowley Post-Herald which no longer publish, or the current newspaper Crowley Post Signal.
• CPD for a small collection of early newspapers from the Church Point Democrat
• CPN for Church Point News
• FF for Freeland Files, a collection of records donated to the Acadia Parish Library and covering the period 1870 - 1900.
• RIN or RAT or RIN/RAT for Rayne Independent News, or Rayne Acadian Tribune or combination of both newspapers, where the obituary appears in both newspapers

The main body of obituary records for the parish are located in the genealogy room of the Acadia Parish Library in Crowley. Smaller collections can be found in the branch libraries in Rayne and Church Point and primarily focus on their respective areas. Please visit their web site at http://www.acadia.lib.la.us/ for hours of operation and perhaps establish a point of contact to assist you during your visit.