Finding the date of an ancestor's death can be a big step forward. It opens up the possibilities of finding a will or an obituary with next of kin listed, among other things. The newspaper sites are an obvious place to start, but at times the software they use for indexing will miss a name that is hard to read due to damage to the newspaper or the poor quality of microfilm that was used. Sometimes however, we get a second chance.
Some of the older papers printed a "Necrology" for the previous year. More common in smaller towns, these would usually appear in the early part of January and list everyone in town who had died the year before. It's just a list of names and dates and often ages, but it tells you what time frame you should be concentrating on in your search for a full blown obituary and other records that would be generated by a death. So it you can't find the record you seek in the year you believe the death occurred, try January of the following year.
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