The library charges $5.00 per look-up for anyone requesting obituaries who resides outside of Kansas. We charge for looking for the obituary, not for what we find. If an obituary appears more than once, say in subsequent newspaper days, and the requestor wants them both, we charge $5.00 for each, even if the obituaries are exactly the same. The library charges a $25 flat fee to look up any name not in our index. We must have the person’s name as well as day, month, and year of death. We will look in the newspaper of record for five days, $5 for each additional day or days in the newspaper of record (Topeka State Journal) or in the alternate daily (Topeka Daily Capital).We accept no more than 10 look-ups at once. If our index indicates a person’s obituary occurs in the newspaper on two or more days, that represents two or more look-ups. We will accept another request of up to 10 look-ups after we send out the results of the first request.
Please search the TSCPL Obituary Index for persons of interest. Type in last name and first name. Send us the indexed information using this form. If you cannot find the person of interest in our index, send us the name and the day, month, and year of death and we will look. See above for fees. Limit requests to obituaries of persons who lived in Topeka, Shawnee County, or whose obituary would have appeared in the local Topeka newspapers.
Regular mail requests should be sent to:
Obituary Requests
1515 SW 10th
Topeka, Kansas 66604
If you must call, use (785) 580-4510
Allow two to four weeks for delivery.
We must receive payment before we look for the obituaries. Include your postal address and telephone number in case we cannot send copies by email. No request will be accepted that does not include a postal address. We currently accept payment by check only. The index contains in excess of 170,000 entries. We are not responsible for errors in the index.