I need the obituary information for Kelly Nicole Sharp who died 6/22/2004. According to a search at the Houston Chronicle website there is at least a notice in the paper on the 25th of June.

Do an Obit search using only the Obituary Date of 6/26/2004 for Houston Chronicle. You'll get 18 matches. Note that the 18 matches cover only through the letter H for the deceased's name.

Click to view the obit of Chantell Carmouche Adams. For the resulting page you will note that although the search was for the 26th the Death Notices and Guest Books are for 6/25/2004 and listed are the results for Page 1 of 3. If I click on the 2 or 3 at the bottom, click to Show anything other then 25, or click to view Notice Headings I get Page 1 of 1 with one obit for Ferguson, Betty Lee.

I I have clicked different things to see obits on page 2 and 3 from the Houston Chronicle and I cannot get any obit information for anyone whose name begins with a letter after H in the alphabet.

I don't want to get the obit from the Houston Chronicle as they want to charge me and I'm already paying Ancestry.com to access the obituaries through the Obituary Collection.

Can this be fixed. Someone from Ancestry please reply.

Thank you, Kathy

Kathy -

I found your obit by going the long way around to get the results...something I've learned has to be done to find what you are looking for sometimes.

I used the search date of 6/25/2004 - Houston Chronicle newspaper > Clicked on Guest Book > Clicked on View Full Obituary > Clicked on Today's notices at the bottom of the page > Clicked on Obits Archive on left hand side of the page > put in her last name and search years 2001-2004.

Not user-friendly to say the least......Hope you get an answer from someone at Ancestry...

You are not alone in the frustration of looking for an obit!!

Nancy

Nancy,

Thank you for your trouble. I originally found the date at the website for the Houston Chronicle. They wanted $4.95 (I think) to view the obit since I don't subscribe to the Houston Chronicle.

I'm in Ohio and I don't need the obit bad enough to pay for it especially since it should be available through Ancestry which I'm already paying for.

Kathy

Kathy -

Amazing how you got a same day response on your message about the "message board working" and it's been over a week with no answer to your problem.

Nancy

Nancy,

It's not amazing to me.

For the last two years or so I've posted problems to the Ancestry Boards and emailed Ancestry Support.

Rarely is there an answer from someone from Ancestry on the boards. Rarely any of the problems have been fixed. On some of them Support suggests ways to work around it.

Most of the times I receive replies from Support. When they indicate a problem will be fixed I figure I'll be old and grey when it's fixed.

There have been a few problems fixed but they are rare. I've tried posting that same message and I still can't. Support can't tell me why. I redid the message and eliminated the 3 URLs relating to the Ancestry pages showing the problem and the message went through.

Kathy

Kathy-

I'm sorry, I thought Nancy's reply had answered your question. Do you need any more information than what Nancy had posted?

-Julie

Julie,

I know that I can get the obit from the Houston Chronicle website. I don't live in Tx or subscribe to the Houston Chronicle so there is a fee to view the obit.

I just went back and did what Nancy said to do and got the screen where I could pay to view the obit. I went to her message again and realized I clicked on "Archives" instead of "Obit Archives". I finally got the obit but it doesn't show in the index for Ancestry.

I feel that I'm paying to view the obit at Ancestry and I should be able to view it at Ancestry.

In reference to trying to post the "original" message about the problem I tried again to post the message. Again I could not post that original message. The message did contain 3 URLs for 3 different Ancestry screens to show where the problem is. The only way I could post the message was to redo the message without the URLs. Once I took the URLs out the message went through.

Kathy

Nancy,

I got the obit. Thank you so much for the workaround. I still had a problem because I was clicking on "Archive" and not "Obit Archives"

Thank you so much for the informaiton.

Kathy

Julie -

If I may "jump in" on this discussion.... I feel the same frustration as Kathy about having to go the "long way" around to find a particular obit. Why would one think or have known that the obit that Kathy was looking for would be listed under "Guest Book"...especially when that particular "Guest Book" had nothing whatsoever to do with the name that Kathy was looking for? The only reason that I was able to find it for her is by past experience of having to go the "long way around" and to be innovative in some of my searching...which should not have to be!! How may obits are missed by people searching for a name because of the way the Obituary Collection data is set up?

The Obituary Collection database needs work big-time for those of us who are searching for obits that should show up and don't. Obits are a very important part of research and connection to possible living relatives and further infomation. I hope that Ancestry.com takes a hard look at the problems that are there within the database and makes an attempt to correct those problems.

I do understand that it may "connect" to names that are close in proximity to those we are searching for...just like the Newspaper Collection...but those names should show up in our search.

Nancy

Julie,

This is the latest reply I've received from Ancestry Support:

Dear Kathleen,

We appreciate your message.

We regret any inconvenience with the message boards at Ancestry.com. For some reason the administrator of the this message board has restricted this type of posting. To receive assistance with administrative issues on the Message Boards you will need to contact the Message Board Administration Team which is part of RootsWeb.com. To email the RootsWeb.com Help Desk please visit the following URL:

http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help.cgi

If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.

Jason
Member Solutions
Ancestry.com
http://ancestry.custhelp.com/

Have you blocked messages that contain URLs? I'm thinking of posting the message to the Ancestry Site Comments Board to see if the message can be posted. I know that not too long ago someone had posted a message at that board that contained a link and he said his message was deleted. I tried to located the message but couldn't.

Kathy