00:00 Obituaries are seen as a final gift to loved ones and are often read by elderly people.

02:17 Obituaries have changed over the years, and now genealogy and obituary websites use AI to generate obituaries dating back to the 1750s, although obituaries were not a big thing unless the person was famous.

04:32 In the mid-19th century, obituaries started to include regular people, but they were still very basic and only included the person's name, date of death, and maybe some information about the funeral.

06:54 During the Civil War, the number of death notices and obituaries increased significantly, and there was a growing fascination with death among the Victorians.

09:25 Newspapers started charging people to have their loved ones listed in obituary columns, leading to a significant increase in the number of obituaries published.

11:49 Obituaries serve as quasi-legal documents that inform the community of a person's death and may also be used to make claims against the estate, but it is not a legal requirement to publish an obituary, although funeral homes typically handle the publication and the family is responsible for providing the information and paying for it, with the cost often being charged by line; after 9/11, obituaries became more personal and honest, with a trend towards openness and honesty in memorializing the deceased.

14:02 Some obituaries have caused controversy, such as one where the deceased was not missed by their children due to past grievances, leading to a backlash and sympathy for the deceased.