The Canadian Necrology database is a unique source of obituary and death information for both prominent and lesser-known Canadians, covering a time span from the late 18th century to 1977. It contains over 20,000 records; the majority come from newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, Toronto Daily Star, Gazette, and Mail and Empire; an additional 4,000 records were compiled by William Henry Pearson (1831-1920), a Toronto resident with a lifetime passion for necrology.
Read more about the database's sources or view Pearson's manuscript.
In 2024 the original database was migrated into the following formats:
- these website pages, where you can learn more about the project and its data sources
- an uneditable and static web archived capture of the original database, enabling you to browse the records as they were available in the former Drupal 7 version of the database
- a From The Page transcription project for Pearson's manuscript
- a static spreadsheet available for you to access and download all of the original database data
If you have any questions please contact us.