What is in the index?
75,400 obituary or death notices of individuals associated with York County Maine from the 1890's to 2019; sourced from newspapers in the collection of Goodall Library, Sanford.
Full-text obituaries are not available here: this is merely an index. This site will tell you if an obituary exists for an individual and where to find it in the a local newspaper. Each record contains Name, Age, Newspaper, Publication Date, and Page Number.
NOTICE: The last remaining local paper that published obituaries (Biddeford Journal-Tribune) ceased publication on 12 October 2019. Consequently, there is no longer a local paper providing Sanford obituaries. See the Resources page for alternative sources.
What newspapers are indexed?
| Newspaper | Published | Indexed Here? | Digitized? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biddeford Journal-Tribune | 1977-2019 | Yes | 5/2/1977—6/15/1977 1/3/1978—2/28/1978 |
| Sanford News | 1980-2017 | No † | 4/19/1980—6/24/1986 |
| Sanford Star | 1977-78 | Yes (if not in BJT) | No |
| Sanford Tribune & Advocate | 1923-77 | Yes | 4/5/1923—4/13/1950 |
| Sanford Tribune | 1900-24 | Yes (incomplete) | 7/14/1899—3/29/1923 4/20/1950—4/28/1977 |
| Sanford Weekly Tribune | 1890's | No | 12/19/1895—7/7/1899 |
| Springvale Advocate | 1883-85, 1887-95, 1908-09, 1911-12 | 1889-91 only | 4/14/1905—12/30/1921 |
Other nineteenth-century newspapers are not indexed here and are not part of the digital archive: Sanford Weekly Ledger (1893-94), Sanford Siftings (1888-89), Sanford Herald (1884-85), York County Advocate (1882-83), Sanford Weekly News (1880-83), Springvale Reporter (1876-79); neither is the French language newspaper La Justice de Sanford (1925-28).
† Sanford News not indexed because obits were typically in the Journal-Tribune, which was included because it was the only daily paper in the area, and it included Sanford-Springvale area obituaries.
How do to I obtain a copy of an obituary?
If a newspaper name is linked, click on it to view the Springvale-Goodall libraries digitized newspaper for the given date. This website creates links based on the holdings in the digital collection. Please note that the digital collection is fragmentary. Sometimes a link will be provided to a non-existant file. If a linked name does not result in a hit, try broadening the date range of the search.
Another suggestion is to click the 
link for any listing to see if there is a grave memorial online. Occasionally these will include an obit and/or photograph.