Echovita Obituary & Funeral Home Scraper

Scrape Echovita.com — an obituary and funeral home directory covering the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Search obituaries by name, browse by state/province/region, city, or date of death, browse the obituaries published by a specific funeral home, look up specific obituaries by URL, or browse the funeral home directory. Get full name, birth/death dates, age, location, biography, funeral home, and service details. HTTP-only, no auth, no login wall.

What this actor does

• Seven modes: search (by name), byState (state/province/region), byCity, byDate (date of death), byUrls (direct lookup), funeralHomes (directory), byFuneralHome (obituaries from one funeral home)
• Four countries: United States (all 50 states + DC), Canada (all 13 provinces/territories), Australia (all 8 states/territories), New Zealand (North Island / South Island)
• Recency filter: narrow any browse/search mode to obituaries published in the last 7 days, month, 6 months, or year
• Filters: birth-year and death-year ranges
• Full obituary detail: biography text, exact birth/death dates, age at death, geo-coordinates, funeral service info, funeral home
• Empty fields are omitted — a record never contains null, "", or []

Output per obituary

• obituaryId
• fullName, givenName, familyName
• birthDate, deathDate — ISO dates, when disclosed
• birthYear, deathYear, ageAtDeath
• city, state, stateCode — state, province, or region (e.g. Ontario / on, New South Wales / nsw, North Island / ni)
• country, countryCode — United States/us, Canada/ca, Australia/au, or New Zealand/nz
• latitude, longitude
• biography — full obituary text
• headline — page headline (e.g. Jane Doe Obituary (1942-2026) | City, ST)
• datePublished, dateModified
• funeralHomeName, funeralHomeUrl — when the obituary lists a funeral home
• serviceName, serviceStartDate, serviceLocationName, serviceAddress, serviceOrganizer — when a funeral/memorial service is scheduled
• socialImageUrl — the page's social-share image (usually an auto-generated card with the name/dates overlaid, not necessarily a real photo of the deceased)
• sourceUrl
• recordType: "obituary", scrapedAt

Output per funeral home (mode=funeralHomes / obituaries browsed via mode=byFuneralHome)

• name, phone, address, website
• city, state, stateCode
• country, countryCode
• logoUrl — the funeral home's uploaded logo, when set; otherwise Echovita's generic placeholder icon
• servicesOffered[] — e.g. traditional service, cremation, pre-arrangements
• latitude, longitude
• sourceUrl
• recordType: "funeralHome", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / byState / byCity / byDate / byUrls / funeralHomes / byFuneralHome
nameQuery	string	Smith	Full or partial name (mode=search)
country	string	us	us / ca / au / nz — which Echovita market to browse
state	string	–	US state, 2-letter code (used when country=us; required for byState/byCity, optional filter for funeralHomes)
caProvince	string	–	Canadian province/territory code (used when country=ca)
auState	string	–	Australian state/territory code (used when country=au)
nzRegion	string	–	ni (North Island) or si (South Island) (used when country=nz)
city	string	–	City name (required for byCity; optional filter for funeralHomes)
deathDate	string	–	YYYY-MM-DD (mode=byDate)
obituaryUrls	array	–	Direct obituary URLs, any supported country (mode=byUrls)
funeralHomeUrl	string	–	Direct funeral home URL (mode=byFuneralHome)
rangeTime	string	4 (all time)	Recency filter: 0 last 7 days, 1 last month, 2 last 6 months, 3 last year, 4 all time
minBirthYear / maxBirthYear	int	–	Birth year range
minDeathYear / maxDeathYear	int	–	Death year range
maxItems	int	50	Hard cap on emitted records (1-2000)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy	Not required for this target; left available for resilience

Example: search obituaries by surname

{
  "mode": "search",
  "nameQuery": "Johnson",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: browse obituaries in a US state, recent decades only

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "state": "tx",
  "minDeathYear": 2020,
  "maxItems": 40
}

Example: browse obituaries in a specific city

{
  "mode": "byCity",
  "state": "mi",
  "city": "olivet",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: obituaries of people who died on a specific date

{
  "mode": "byDate",
  "deathDate": "2026-07-10",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: browse obituaries in a Canadian province, last 7 days only

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "country": "ca",
  "caProvince": "on",
  "rangeTime": "0",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: browse obituaries in an Australian state

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "country": "au",
  "auState": "nsw",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: browse obituaries in New Zealand's South Island

{
  "mode": "byState",
  "country": "nz",
  "nzRegion": "si",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: obituaries published by a specific funeral home

{
  "mode": "byFuneralHome",
  "funeralHomeUrl": "https://www.echovita.com/us/funeral-homes/mi/charlotte/pray-funeral-home-inc-2383",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: funeral home directory in a state

{
  "mode": "funeralHomes",
  "state": "ny",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Use cases

• Genealogy research — bulk-collect obituary records for family history projects
• Local news / media monitoring — track recent obituaries for a city, region, or country
• Funeral industry market research — build a directory of funeral homes by state/province or city, or pull the full publication history of one funeral home
• Historical/demographic analysis — analyze age-at-death and location trends over time
• Estate & probate research — locate recent death records with dates and location

FAQ

What is the data source? Echovita.com, an obituary and funeral home directory covering the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This actor is an independent, third-party scraper and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Echovita.

Is socialImageUrl a real photo of the deceased? Usually not. Echovita auto-generates a social-share card image (name and dates overlaid on a template) for most obituaries, and the list/detail thumbnail is typically a generic numbered stock avatar rather than a genuine photo. The field is included because the URL is real and resolves, but treat it as a share-card image, not a verified photograph.

Why do some obituaries have no funeral home or service info? Not every obituary lists a funeral home or a scheduled service — these fields are simply omitted when the source page doesn't include them, never filled with a placeholder.

How does byCity know the right city URL slug? City names are normalized to lowercase, hyphen-separated slugs (e.g. Los Angeles -> los-angeles) to match Echovita's URL pattern. If a city slug doesn't match any listings, the run returns 0 records with a status message rather than failing.

Does Echovita cover other countries? Yes. Set country to ca (Canada), au (Australia), or nz (New Zealand) and use the matching region field (caProvince, auState, or nzRegion) instead of state. mode=search, byDate, byUrls, funeralHomes, and byFuneralHome all work the same way across every supported country — only the region taxonomy changes.

What does rangeTime do, and when should I use it? It's Echovita's own recency filter, applied server-side. Leave it at the default (4, all time) for the broadest results, or narrow it to 0 (last 7 days) for a daily-monitoring style feed of the newest obituaries in a state, province, city, or funeral home.

How does byFuneralHome work? Point it at any funeral home's Echovita page URL (get one from mode=funeralHomes, or from an obituary's funeralHomeUrl field) and it returns every obituary that funeral home has published on the site, newest first.

How fresh is the data? Each run fetches the live site directly — obituaries are typically published within a day of the source funeral home submitting them.