Finding a specific notice in the NW Indiana Times obituaries can feel like a maze if you don't know where the digital archives are hiding. Most people call it "The Times," and for over a century, it’s been the backbone of record-keeping for Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties.
It's personal.
When someone passes away in the Region—whether they were a steelworker in Gary, a teacher in Munster, or a business owner in Valparaiso—their story usually lands here. But the way we access these records has changed wildly over the last decade. It isn't just about grabbing a physical paper off the porch anymore.
Where to Look for NW Indiana Times Obituaries Today
The Times (nwi.com) currently hosts its obituary section through a partnership with Legacy.com. Honestly, this is pretty standard for major regional papers, but it means the interface might feel a bit "corporate" compared to the old-school local feel of the paper.
If you are looking for someone who passed away recently, your first stop is the nwi.com obituaries page. You'll see a search bar. Don't overthink it. Just type the last name and maybe a year. If the person had a very common name—think "Miller" or "Smith"—you're going to want to filter by the city or the specific date range to avoid scrolling through hundreds of entries.
Sometimes the search is finicky. If you can't find a name, try searching only the last name and "Northwest Indiana" in a standard Google search. Often, the Google index picks up the direct link faster than the internal site search does.
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Why the "The Times" Still Matters in a Social Media World
You might wonder why people still pay for a formal obituary when they can just post on Facebook. There's a reason. A notice in the NW Indiana Times obituaries serves as a legal and historical record.
Genealogists and historians rely on these archives. Fifty years from now, a Facebook post will be long gone, buried under billions of lines of code and deleted accounts. But the archives of The Times are digitized, microfilmed, and preserved by local libraries like the Lake County Public Library system. It’s about permanence.
The Cost Factor: What Most People Get Wrong
People are often shocked by the price. Placing an obituary in The Times isn't cheap. It's basically a classified ad, and they charge by the line or by a flat package rate.
Most local funeral homes, like Burns Funeral Home or Geisen Funeral, Home, will handle the submission for you. They have the templates. They know the deadlines. But you can also do it yourself if you’re trying to save on the middleman markup.
Here is the thing: a "death notice" and an "obituary" are different. A death notice is usually a short, five-line blurb with the bare essentials. An obituary is the narrative. If you’re on a budget, you can run a short notice in the print edition and put a longer, more beautiful tribute on a free memorial site.
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Tracking Down Older Records
What if you’re looking for someone from 1985? Or 1950?
The nwi.com website usually only goes back about 20 years with its direct search. For anything older, you’re going to have to do some real detective work.
- The Lake County Public Library (LCPL): They have a massive "Indiana Room." They have indexed many of the obituaries from The Times and the old Gary Post-Tribune. You can often request a lookup if you live out of state.
- Microfilm: It sounds ancient, but it’s the most reliable way. You sit at a machine, spin the reels, and look at the actual scan of the paper from the day the person died. It’s strangely emotional to see the person’s name surrounded by the news of that specific day.
- Ancestry and FamilySearch: Both of these platforms have scraped data from The Times over the years. If you have a subscription, it’s often faster than the library.
Understanding the "Region" Context
When you search NW Indiana Times obituaries, remember that the paper covers a huge footprint. It isn’t just Hammond or Munster. It’s the "Region." This includes Highland, Griffith, Dyer, St. John, and even down into Cedar Lake and Lowell.
Because the area is so interconnected with Chicago, you’ll often see references to people who worked in the city but lived in Indiana. This crossover is vital for finding missing family links. If you can’t find someone in the NW Indiana records, check the Chicago Tribune or the Sun-Times. People often lived in one and worked in the other, and families would cross-post notices to make sure everyone saw them.
Common Mistakes When Searching
One of the biggest hurdles is typos. Not yours—theirs.
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Back in the day, these were typed up manually under tight deadlines. Names get misspelled. Dates get transposed. If you can't find "Jonathon Smith," try "John Smith" or just "Smith" with the date of death.
Also, consider maiden names. In Northwest Indiana’s history, especially within the Polish, Slovak, and Mexican communities that built the mills, names were frequently shortened or changed slightly over generations. If a search fails, search for the names of the surviving children mentioned in the header; sometimes that's the "hook" that brings up the record.
Writing a Notice for The Times
If you're the one writing the obituary, keep it simple. Start with the basics: name, age, city of residence, and date of death.
Then, move to the "Region" connection. Did they work at US Steel? Inland? Were they a regular at a specific parish like Our Lady of Grace? These details help local friends identify the person quickly.
Don't forget the service details. This is the most practical part of the NW Indiana Times obituaries. People need to know where to go and when. If there is a "celebration of life" instead of a traditional wake, make that very clear. People in the Region have deep traditions, but things are shifting toward more informal gatherings.
Actionable Steps for Finding and Preserving Records
If you are currently looking for a record or preparing to submit one, follow these steps to ensure the process is smooth and the record is preserved:
- Check the Online Archive First: Go to the nwi.com obituary section. Use the "advanced search" feature to narrow down the year if the name is common.
- Contact the Library for Genealogy: If the record is more than 20 years old, call the Lake County Public Library or the Valparaiso Public Library. Ask for the genealogy department. They are incredibly helpful and often have indexes that aren't available to the general public online.
- Download the PDF: If you find a recent obituary online, don't just bookmark it. Print it to a PDF. Digital links break. Websites change their hosting partners (The Times has done this several times). Having a hard copy or a saved PDF ensures you won't lose that history.
- Verify the Deadlines: If you are submitting a notice, the cutoff for the next day's print edition is usually mid-afternoon. If you miss it, you're waiting 24 to 48 hours.
- Check Social Media Groups: Local "Remembering [City Name]" groups on Facebook often have members who clip and post obituaries from the physical paper. This is a great "Plan B" if the official website is glitching.
The NW Indiana Times obituaries remain a vital part of the community's fabric. While the format has shifted from newsprint to pixels, the goal is the same: making sure a life lived in the Region isn't forgotten. Whether you're doing family research or mourning a recent loss, these records are the primary source for the history of Northwest Indiana residents.