Search Franklin County Obituary Records
Franklin County obituary records cover a sparsely populated region in northern New York along the Canadian border, with the county seat in Malone. Death records and vital records in Franklin County are maintained by individual municipal clerks, not the county clerk's office directly. The Franklin County Historical and Museum Society in Malone holds a significant obituaries collection along with cemetery indexes, family histories, and pre-1900 newspaper microfilms. Researchers should also be aware that several state census records for Franklin County have been lost, making obituary records and death certificates especially important for establishing vital dates in this area.
Franklin County Clerk Records
The Franklin County Clerk is at 355 West Main Street, Suite 248, Malone, NY 12953. The phone number is 518-481-1681. The office holds land records from 1808 and court records from 1918. Vital records such as birth and death certificates are not held by the county clerk. Instead, you need to contact the individual town clerk in the municipality where the death occurred. This is standard practice across most New York counties, but it can be confusing for people who expect the county clerk to have all records in one place. Franklin County's town clerks each serve as local registrars under state law.
State census records for Franklin County survive from 1855, 1875, 1905, 1915, and 1925. The censuses from other years have been lost. This is a significant gap for genealogy researchers. When census records are missing, obituary records and death certificates become even more critical for documenting family information. The Franklin County Clerk also does not offer an online records search, so all research must be done in person, by mail, or by phone.
Franklin County Historical and Museum Society
The Franklin County Historical and Museum Society at 51 Milwaukee Street, PO Box 388, Malone, NY, is one of the strongest resources for obituary research in the county. Call (518) 483-2750 for information. The society's holdings include family histories, cemetery indexes, census records, city directories, and newspapers on microfilm dating to before 1900. Their obituaries collection is significant and covers a wide time span. The Clarence Kilburn Papers and Civil War papers also contain death-related information for Franklin County residents who served in the military.
For researchers who cannot visit Malone, some of these materials may be available through interlibrary loan or by contacting the society directly with specific research questions. The society's volunteers have spent years indexing Franklin County obituary records from local newspapers, and their card files and finding aids can save hours of searching through microfilm. Cemetery indexes are particularly useful in Franklin County, where small family plots and church cemeteries are scattered across a large geographic area. Matching a cemetery inscription with a published obituary often provides the most complete picture of a Franklin County death.
Death Certificate Requests for Franklin County
Under Public Health Law § 4140, local registrars in Franklin County must maintain death records for their jurisdiction. Each town clerk handles this. Malone, Tupper Lake, Saranac Lake (partly in Franklin County), and the smaller towns all keep their own files. The New York State Department of Health also holds copies under § 4147, giving you an alternative path if you are unsure which town to contact.
Certified copies of Franklin County death certificates cost $30 from the state under § 4174. You need to provide the deceased person's name, date and place of death, your relationship to the deceased, and the reason for the request. Only qualified applicants can get certified copies. For genealogy work, an informational copy may be sufficient and may have fewer restrictions on who can request it. Local town clerks in Franklin County may process requests faster than the state office, especially for recent deaths where the records are readily accessible.
Obituary Research Resources in Franklin County
The William Chapman White Memorial Room at the Saranac Lake Free Library is another important resource for Franklin County obituary research. The library maintains an obituary index, census records covering Essex, Franklin, Clinton, and St. Lawrence counties from 1850 to 1925, church records, and cemetery inscriptions. This cross-county coverage is valuable because families in northern New York often had members living in multiple counties. A death in Franklin County might be noted in a St. Lawrence County newspaper, or the burial might have taken place across the county line in Essex County.
The Franklin County Surrogate's Court, reachable at (518) 481-1736, holds probate records from the late 1800s onward. Probate files often contain death dates and family member names that are not found in other sources. These records are public and can be reviewed at the courthouse. For older estates, the Surrogate's Court files may be the only official document listing the exact date of death for a Franklin County resident.
Online resources for Franklin County obituaries include the NYS Historic Newspapers project, FamilySearch, Ancestry, and FindAGrave. The New York State Archives holds statewide death indexes on microfiche that cover Franklin County. These various digital and physical resources should be used together, since no single source has complete coverage of all Franklin County deaths and obituaries across every time period.
Tips for Franklin County Obituary Research
Franklin County's remote location in northern New York means that many records have not been digitized. Planning ahead is essential. Call the Franklin County Historical and Museum Society before visiting to confirm their hours and ask about specific collections. The county historian can also provide guidance on where to look for particular types of death records. For deaths before 1880, newspaper obituaries, church death registers, and cemetery inscriptions may be the only sources available. Official death certificates in Franklin County become more reliable after 1880, but gaps still exist in the early years of civil registration. Combining multiple source types gives the best results when searching for obituary information in this part of the state.