Finding a specific piece of information in a local record shouldn't feel like a chore. Honestly, when you're looking for Coles County Illinois obituaries, you've probably realized it's not always as simple as a quick Google search. You've got different towns like Mattoon, Charleston, and Oakland, each with their own history and their own ways of keeping track of who’s passed on.
People think everything is online now. It’s not.
If you’re looking for someone who passed away last week, sure, you’ll probably find them on a funeral home’s website or a legacy portal. But if you’re digging into family history from the 1940s or even the 1890s? That's where things get interesting and a little bit messy. You basically have to become a part-time detective.
Where the Recent Records Live
For anything happening right now, the Journal Gazette & Times-Courier is the big player. They’ve been the primary news source for the Mattoon and Charleston area for a long time. Most families still place formal notices there.
You can usually find these digitally through the newspaper's own site or through major aggregators like Legacy.com. If you’re checking for a name today, you’ll see recent listings for folks like Brian Tewell Doty or Peggy Ann Clapp. These digital footprints are great because they often include guestbooks where friends leave memories.
But here’s the thing: those digital versions sometimes disappear or move behind paywalls after a few months.
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If you miss the window, you’re looking at local libraries. The Charleston Carnegie Public Library and the Mattoon Public Library are absolute goldmines. They keep the physical or microfilm records that the internet forgets.
The Funeral Home Factor
Sometimes the most detailed Coles County Illinois obituaries aren't in the paper at all. They’re on the funeral home’s website. In Coles County, you’re usually looking at a few key places:
- Schilling Funeral Home (Mattoon)
- Mitchell-Jerdan Funeral Home (Mattoon)
- Adams Funeral Chapel (Charleston)
- Harper-Swickard Funeral Home (Charleston)
- Krabel Funeral Home (Oakland)
These sites often host the full life story, the "human" stuff that sometimes gets trimmed for the newspaper to save on line costs. We're talking about the names of the beloved hunting dogs, the specific flavor of pie they were famous for, and the exact church group they never missed a meeting for.
Diving Into the Deep Past
Genealogy is where it gets kind of addictive. If you are looking for an ancestor from the late 1800s, you have to shift your strategy. Coles County was organized back in 1830, named after Edward Coles, the second governor of Illinois. That’s a lot of history to sift through.
The Coles County Illinois Genealogical Society is your best friend here. They have a massive collection housed at the Charleston library.
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One thing most people get wrong is assuming the record is under the name they expect. Spelling back then was... creative. You might find a "Lawyer" listed as "Loyer" or a "Schrader" as "Srader."
You should also check the Illinois State Archives. They have a statewide death index. For Coles County specifically, the IRAD (Illinois Regional Archives Depository) at Eastern Illinois University holds the really old stuff—coroner’s records, probate files, and sometimes even the handwritten notes from doctors before official death certificates were a thing.
The "Hidden" Records You’re Missing
Don't sleep on the Genealogy Trails website. It’s an all-volunteer project, and for Coles County, it's surprisingly robust. They have transcriptions of old death notices that are literally just snippets from 19th-century newspapers.
Take a look at this old-school entry style:
"Jacob Lawyer, of Diona, died last night... injuries received by falling from a wheel ten days ago."
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That’s the kind of detail you won't find in a modern, sterilized database. It gives you a sense of what life was actually like back then—dangerous and often short.
Tips for a Better Search
If you're hitting a brick wall, try these steps.
First, stop searching just for the name. Search for the cemetery. Coles County has some beautiful ones like Dodge Grove in Mattoon or Mound Cemetery in Charleston. Often, the cemetery records will have a burial date that leads you to the exact week you need to check the newspaper microfilm.
Second, check the neighbors. Often, if a person lived on the border of Coles and Douglas or Edgar counties, the obituary might be in the other county’s paper. It happened all the time.
Third, use the "Social Security Death Index" (SSDI) if the person passed between 1962 and the early 2010s. It’s a great way to confirm the exact date of death before you pay for a newspaper archive search.
Practical Next Steps
If you need to find an obituary in Coles County right now, do this:
- For 2024-2026 deaths: Start with the Schilling or Adams funeral home websites. They are the most likely to have the full text for free.
- For 1980-2023 deaths: Try the Journal Gazette digital archives or a paid service like Newspapers.com.
- For anything older: Contact the Charleston Carnegie Public Library. They have volunteers who can help, and for a small fee (usually around $5.00), they might even mail or email you a scan of the microfilm.
- Visit EIU: If you’re a serious researcher, go to the Booth Library at Eastern Illinois University and ask for the IRAD collections.
Finding these records is about preserving a legacy. Whether it’s for a legal reason or just to see a photo of a great-grandfather you never met, these documents are the last word on a person’s life.