In today’s digital age, creating an obituary online has become a common practice to commemorate the lives of loved ones who have passed away. An online obituary allows you to share memories, stories, and important details about the loved one with friends, family, and a broader online community.

Whether you’re a family or a funeral director, we’ll walk you through the steps to create an obituary online, ensuring a heartfelt and respectful tribute to every loved one using an obituary generator or obituary builder.

Select an Obituary Generator Tool

Thanks to continued innovation, there are several different obituary generator tools available to help you overcome writer’s block and create a unique obituary in minutes instead of hours. However, some obituary generators go an extra step to ensure that you don’t have to double-enter any information about the loved one.

In this example, we’ll show you how to make an obituary online using Gather’s funeral management platform for funeral homes, crematories, and families.

Log In To Gather

In order to utilize Gather’s Obituary Builder, your funeral home or crematory needs to be signed up to use Gather’s platform. Once your funeral home or crematory has full access to Gather, you’ll eventually be able to log in by visiting https://my.gather.app/. 

Navigate to The Loved One’s Organize Page

Once logged into Gather, select the ‘Organize’ tab at the top to navigate to the loved one’s Organize Page. This will provide you with an overview of all outstanding tasks that need to be completed in preparation for the loved one’s services.

Select The ‘Complete Obituary’ Task

After glancing at your task list, you should find a task titled ‘Complete Obituary’. Select the task and click ‘Work on Obituary’. You’ll be prompted to get started, and get a quick view of how many data points are already being pulled over from the completed death certificate within Gather.

Verify The Loved One’s Important Information

Next, simply click through the boxes on the left-hand side of the screen to verify the loved one’s information that was mapped in directly from their completed death certificate, including: life information, age, parents, education, marriage, work history, military status, loved ones, and scheduled services.

If you have edits in any of these sections, select ‘Edit This Information’. Any fields in green indicate that the information is complete. Once you’re ready to move to the next section that requires a bit more input, select the ‘Next’ button.

Add Additional Details About Their Life

Now, you can add the details that mattered most to the loved one, and truly create a unique obituary. In these sections, you can:

• List any nicknames or hobbies that the loved one had
• List any awards, achievements, and clubs
• Adjust the length of the obituary
• Select a specific writing style for the obituary (Formal, Heartfelt, Light-Hearted, etc.)
• Select words to describe the loved one
• Adjust the perspective that the obituary is written in
• Include quotes or verses in the loved one’s obituary
• Specify the language that the obituary is written in

Once you’re ready to create the custom obituary for the loved one, simply click on ‘Generate Obituary’.

Save, Copy, and Print The Completed Obituary

Just like that, you’ve created a unique obituary for the loved one in minutes that includes all of the important information and memories to properly honor their life. From here, you can save the obituary, copy the obituary, and print the obituary if you’d like.

Once you’ve verified that your changes are saved, the next step is to ensure that the funeral director is notified so the obituary can be locked and published to the loved one’s interactive Remember Page where family and friends can post additional memories and photos.

View The Loved One’s Remember Page

If your funeral home or crematory utilizes Gather, a unique Remember Page is created to help honor the loved one, where family and friends can visit and contribute memories and condolences forever. The loved one’s newly created obituary can be read and viewed on their Remember Page.

At Gather, We Care About Funeral Directors and Families

Gather is a funeral home software company that is dedicated to making the funeral arrangement process easier for families and funeral directors. If you’re ever interested in learning more about us, you can read our story on our website.

If you’re a family and believe that your local funeral home or crematory would benefit from using a platform like Gather, feel free to pass along our information. We’re here to help every step of the way.