General Chat

During the Covid outbreak here, things have been vey different in what we might call the obituary world.

No funerals or get togethers, so many people haven't bothered putting obituaries in the papers, at least The Sun has had far fewer than before. I don't see The Province, but as sister papers, almost everything that is in one paper will be in the other with just minor differences. The only real difference now between the papers is that The Sun is published on Saturday but not Sunday, and The Province is published on Sunday but not Saturday!

Notices that are being published say only "private gathering, public memorial will be held when possible to gather", plus many of them are printed months after the event. Many of them also are not saying specifically if the person died from Covid, which is an interesting aspect.

You might try the Toronto Globe and Mail, as that often has obituaries from across the country, especially if the person concerned had lived in several different provinces.


Annie ................. Do you want to send me her name etc and I will see what I can do from this end?

As you haven’t found it in the papers could it have been from a church newsletter?

There is a death notice because there is a small portion of it on the Google front page for the funeral home but, when you look for it, the site can't be found. It gives her name, years of birth and death and Richmond.

Annie

Are you sure there was an obituary? Not everyone has one or even a death notice.

Thanks, Sylvia, I've looked in both of those with no luck. I'll keep looking, something may turn up.

Annie

Annie ..................

Obituries are usually put in either The Vancouver Sun or The Province, which are the 2 major newspapers in BC.

Both owned by the same company so often have the same content, but people seem to often prefer one of them over the other for bmd notices.

Sorry, I've been out the house or out of action for most of the day, hence this late response.

Will do, Belle, thank you.

Annie

Annie, in Canada the Funeral Homes tend to issue the Obituary too.

I have been able to access the echovita.com website.

If you want to send me a PM with the details I can take a look for you if you would like.

Belle

Thanks, everyone. I've tried putting it into Google but with no luck. The links are mostly for funeral homes, though. The one that looked most promising said the site can't be reached so I've sent them a message. This was echovita.com

Annie

Mine was in British Columbia.

Like the others have said, I too have found an obituary by putting the name into Google. This was for Toronto area.

Like LondonBelle, I've just put a name on 'Google', and it's come up with a Canadian obituary.

Weirdly, though, I randomly put in the names of my grandad's best mate, and his wife - let's call them Sid and May -actually, Sid wasn't his real name - it was a nickname, but obviously the name he was known by - who lived in Southampton.
The obituary (which was amazing) was for their son, 'Bill' - who'd died over a year before, in Canada - having gone out there with his wife, when he retired, to live near his son!
The names 'Sid and May' were in the obituary, which probably explains why it appeared.
Just put their names in again - the obituary is still there.

I have just Googled 'Richmond BC Obituaries' and some Obituary sites have come up which you might like to try.

Also I have, in the past, put a person's name into Google and it has found a website with an Obituary for them.

Hopefully, you will be lucky with one of the above :-)

Yes, she's helped me before and I had help too from a lady called Deb but I don't think she's here now.

Annie

Sylvia might be able to help when she wakes up.

I'm not sure on which board to put this so apologies if it's the wrong one.
I'm wondering if any of our friends in Canada can please tell me of a newspaper where there is likely to be an obituary for someone who died in Richmond, Vancouver. She is my husband's first cousin and died last September. I've looked at the Vancouver Sun without any luck.

Annie

Update
I've had a reply from the funeral director. He said the funeral arrangements were carried out by the Ministry of Social Development in British Columbia. He said there was mention at the time of family in the UK and a friend Bob was also mentioned. They have contact details for Bob and asked permission - which we have given - for our details to be passed on to him.