Something about the finality and mystery of death engenders eloquence from the living. The words we take to heart about a person’s life are often written after he or she is gone and no longer able to hear the praise or dispute the acclaim. Too often, the positive things we learn about a person’s life–his or her accomplishments, integrity, and piety–are what we read in the obituaries and listen to at memorial services. Although this practice may shortchange the departed, genealogists find obituaries, memorials, and eulogies invaluable tools for learning more about their ancestors.

Eulogies are such an effective and universal summation of a person’s life that Stephen Covey coaxes people into using them to define personal values through an exercise in his bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He asks readers to picture their own funerals and to think about what people might say about them when they’re dead. "What character would you like them to have seen in you," he asks, and "What difference would you like to have made in their lives?"

Our ancestors didn’t live with Covey’s philosophy in mind, but as a genealogist, you’ve surely read enough obituaries on microfilm and in crumbling newspapers to know that some of the earlier ones can often be effusive and quite elaborate. In the smaller towns of the nineteenth century, friends or family members often write eulogies as community tributes to those who lived pious lives.

While all funerals and memorial services include tributes to the departed, the custom of eighteenth and nineteenth century services sometimes involved publishing the minister’s text to further immortalize the dead. These printed eulogies, funeral sermons, and memorial texts are a great tool for understanding more about a person, the era in which he or she lived, and the customs of the day.

Eulogies discussed in this article come predominantly from the nineteenth century, the most prolific period of this type of publication. They were most often printed for persons of wealth, status, or religious affiliation. However, you may unearth a eulogy written for a tragic death of a child or someone of little prominence. It was preached and printed as a lesson to the living. In fact, these memento mori were often written as reminders to the living that life is brief and should be lived in a most pious manner.

In your search for published eulogies, you will encounter hundreds written about well-known political or military figures like George Washington, Stephen Douglas, and Thomas Jefferson.

Since few of us have ancestors with reputations that may prompt published funeral sermons, it is important to keep in mind that the eulogies can serve two primary purposes for genealogists. First, somewhere within our collateral family lines there may be a connection to someone prosperous or pious enough to warrant a published tract. But second, a eulogy from the same city, time period, or religious affiliation as our forebears will grant us an insight into how a similar service and comparable words may have been spoken for them.

Titles are often detailed and lengthy, but it is often within the title that the genealogical tidbits are found. For example, the title A Discourse, on the Decease of Mrs. Martha Russell, Who Died, at Burlington, January 23d - Interred on the 26th, 1805, After a Mental Derangement During the Seven Preceding Years, - Aged 50 - The Consort of David Russell, Esquire, presents important material for a genealogist, such as name, place and date of death, interment date, illness, age, and name of husband.

Printed eulogies vary in size and quality. While most are approximately 5 x 8 inches and a dozen pages thick, some can be quite small, and others are thick with added submissions. There is rarely any embellishment beyond the sermon, although some contain depictions similar to those on tombstones of the day, and later ones even have images of the deceased and glossy, colorful covers.

The end sheet inside a printed eulogy usually includes attribution to who is responsible for the cost of publishing the text. It can be as simple as, "published by the friends of the deceased," or "printed for, and at the request of the mourners." In the case of two children whose deaths left the parents childless in Utica, New York, the attribution states, "Published by Request of the Parents."

Correspondence between the minister and one of the surviving relatives may be included as an introduction to the text. Note the request to Reverend J. P. Bixby for "your excellent Sermon" by William Fox Richardson in 1864. He asks Bixby, "Will you please gratify me, and the numerous relatives and friends of my deceased wife and daughter" by providing a copy of the sermon for publication. In reply, Bixby not only sends a copy of the sermon but also a letter from "an intimate acquaintance of the deceased" that was printed with the sermon as a memorial tribute. Within that tribute is the information genealogists crave.

There are genealogical nuggets and character assessments interspersed within otherwise didactic sermons. For example, "She was a gay, beautiful, and admired young lady, and was indulged by a fond father." Or, "In the year 1836 an old man died in the city of New York, whose name is, even to this hour, a hissing and a by-word throughout the civilized world." Also, "Mrs. Reed was the fourth member of the same family circle who had died in the brief space of six months." Within this last, The Destruction of Death, A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Mrs. Hannah Reed … delivered 20 May 1855, there are forty-eight pages of text, thirteen of which are dedicated to "her character," especially her generosity, her affectionate spirit, and kind attentions paid to the clergy.

Professional affiliations, last words, and personal reflection by the mourners are often added, as can be seen in these examples:

• In 1808, the last words of Eleanor Emerson were printed with her funeral sermon: "At a quarter after 2, she said, ‘Jesus Christ is mine, and I am his forever and ever,’’’ and "at a quarter before 3 … her immortal spirit took its flight." This same publication also tells us that her "body was deposited in a tomb for a few hours; and then … conveyed to Beverly."

• Within an 1827 discourse for Richard George in Mendon, Massachusetts, is information about his college life (Brown University, 1797), his ill heath (he died at 59 and had been sickly much of his life), his occupation ("preceptor" or teacher), and, as is so often seen, his dedication to his religion.

• A memorial tract for Mary A. Salter, who died in Burlington, Iowa, in 1893, is rife with information about her life and even includes her photo. It exemplifies how printed eulogies in the later years of the nineteenth century included items beyond the funeral sermon to memorialize the deceased and comfort the living. This "obituary," like many others of that time, includes letters and secular eulogies as well as a fairly complete family history.

• "Mrs. Martha Robbins was the eldest daughter of Mr. Ahbel and Mrs. Abigail Wright, of Wethersfield. She was born in that town, on the 24th of January, 1796." The text continues to give a general description of her family without specific facts but later says she was the mother of eight and includes dates for two of her children who died young.

• In a sermon for Mr. William Coombs "published by request of the Church" and delivered 12 June 1814 in Newburyport, Mass-achusetts, there is an asterisked footnote that tells the story of how Coombs had been recognized for saving the life of a drowning child. At seventy-six years of age, he rescued a nine-year-old boy, William Plummer, after seeing him bob up from the bottom of a harbor. "Throwing off his hat and wig, he leaped at once from the wharf, caught the child in his arms, and saved him from impending death." According to the same footnote, the boy exclaimed, "Oh sir! You have saved my life."

• A memorial tribute for Mrs. Abigail Collier of Charlestown, Mass-achusetts, who died in 1813, includes extracts from her diary and concludes with reminiscences of the widower including this comment on how his four-year-old son, on the morning of his mother’s death, said to him, "Mama used to take us into her chamber, and pray with us; won’t she talk to us and pray with us any more?"

Eulogies are sometimes found within college and public libraries but more often in larger universities and archives with significant historical or religious collections. An online library catalog at Brigham Young University returned 2,446 hits on "funeral sermons." The catalog at The College of William and Mary returned 1,116 records. Some archives have less than a dozen eulogies in their collections, while others, like the American Antiquarian Society, well known for archiving such materials, lists 10,000 in its online catalog. Reading through titles and noting dates of death will give you some idea of the scope of these collections.

My children think I’m obsessed with death because I stop at cemeteries, study the obituaries of my ancestors, and get excited when death certificates arrive in my mailbox. Yet I can also lose myself in reading through the eulogies of unknown people in earlier eras because, even when they are not written about my relatives, they bring me closer to understanding the customs of the time period. It isn’t an obsession with death that makes this interesting reading, as fellow genealogists may understand, but rather a passion for understanding the lives of those who have gone before us.

Laura G. Prescott is the educational services coordinator for the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Return to the Ancestry Magazine March/April 2003 table of contents.