Who Should Be Included in an Obituary? Family, Stepchildren and Obituary Etiquette

Deciding who to include in an obituary sounds simple until you are the person making the list.

Families are rarely as tidy as the traditional obituary format suggests. There may be stepchildren, former spouses, unmarried partners, adopted family, chosen family, estranged relatives, lifelong friends, or grandchildren who were never thought of as "step" anything.

Then there is the worry that leaving someone out will hurt them, while including someone else may upset another part of the family.

There is no official list of people who must appear in an obituary. The most useful question is usually this: Who was actually important in this person's life?

If you are still gathering all of the information for the obituary, see our what to include in an obituary checklist. For the full writing process, use our step-by-step obituary guide.

Who is traditionally included in an obituary?

Traditional obituaries often name the person's closest family members. That may include:

• Spouse or partner
• Children
• Grandchildren and great-grandchildren
• Parents
• Siblings
• Other close relatives

People who died before the person are often listed separately under wording such as "preceded in death by."

This is a common structure, but it is not a rule.

A traditional list can be a useful starting point. It should not force you to leave out a relationship that mattered simply because it does not fit an old family template.

Who should be listed as "survived by"?

"Survived by" generally introduces the people who were still living when the person died.

A simple example might be:

You can also include people whose relationships are less traditional if they were important in the person's life.

The obituary does not need to read like a genealogy record. It needs to represent the person's relationships accurately.

Who should be listed as "preceded in death by"?

This phrase is commonly used for important family members or loved ones who died before the person.

Families often include:

• A spouse or partner
• Children
• Parents
• Siblings
• Grandchildren
• Other people who were especially important

For example:

You do not have to list every deceased relative the person ever had.

If a great-aunt died 40 years ago and was not a meaningful part of the person's story, there is no reason she has to appear simply because she was family.

There is no official family hierarchy

Traditional obituary formats grew out of traditional ideas about family. Real families are much more varied.

A person's family may include divorce and remarriage, stepfamilies, adoption, foster relationships, unmarried partners, same-sex spouses or partners, estrangement, chosen family, and friendships that lasted longer than some marriages.

An obituary should reflect the life that was actually lived.

That does not mean every person who ever knew the deceased needs to be included. It means biology and legal paperwork do not have to be the only things that determine who counts.

If someone was treated as family for 30 years, it is reasonable for the obituary to reflect that.

Should stepchildren be included in an obituary?

Yes, if they were part of the person's family.

If someone helped raise a stepchild, loved them as a son or daughter, or remained part of their life for decades, the word "step" should not be the reason they disappear from the obituary.

You have some flexibility in how you describe the relationship.

Some families write:

Others prefer:

Neither approach is automatically better.

Use the words the family normally used. If the person never referred to Eric as her "stepson" and always called him her son, forcing a label into the obituary may feel less accurate, not more.

Should step-grandchildren be included in an obituary?

Yes, when they were part of the person's family life.

This question comes up more often than you might expect, especially in blended families.

If someone attended a step-grandchild's birthdays, graduations and holidays, called them a grandchild, and treated them like the other grandchildren, including them usually makes sense.

You can name everyone:

You can distinguish the relationships if the family prefers:

Or, for a large family, you can use a total:

The best wording is usually the wording that matches how the family understood those relationships while the person was alive.

Should adopted children or grandchildren be identified as adopted?

Usually, there is no reason to identify someone as adopted unless that distinction is meaningful to the family or necessary for clarity.

If someone was simply the person's daughter, son, grandchild, sister or brother in everyday life, the obituary can usually describe them the same way.

For example:

You do not need:

That level of detail can make a relationship sound different when the family never treated it as different.

There may be situations where adoption is an important part of the person's story. If so, include it because it matters, not because you feel obligated to label the relationship.

What about foster children?

Foster relationships vary enormously.

Some children may have been in a home for a short period. Others remain connected to foster parents and siblings for the rest of their lives.

If a foster child was considered part of the family and remained an important relationship, it is reasonable to include them.

You might write:

You do not have to squeeze every relationship into a single family label. Sometimes a short explanation is clearer and warmer.

Can chosen family or close friends be included?

Absolutely.

Some people have friendships that function as family. A lifelong friend may have been the person who spent holidays with them, cared for them during an illness, held a key to the house, or was listed as the emergency contact for 25 years.

It would be strange to leave that person out merely because there is no legal relationship.

You can name the relationship directly:

Or:

An obituary has room for the relationships that made up the person's real life.

Should an unmarried partner be included?

Yes, if that partner was an important part of the person's life.

A couple does not have to be legally married for the relationship to belong in the obituary.

You might use:

• Partner
• Longtime partner
• Life partner
• Fiancé or fiancée
• Domestic partner

Use the term the couple themselves used when possible.

That is clear and does not require any further explanation.

Should an ex-spouse be included?

Sometimes.

Divorce does not tell you everything about the relationship that came afterward.

An ex-spouse may still have been a close friend, co-parent, caregiver, or regular part of family life. In that case, including them can make sense.

If the marriage ended decades ago and the two people had little or no contact afterward, there may be no reason to include the former spouse.

If you do include an ex-spouse, the wording can stay simple:

You do not need to explain the divorce.

What about estranged family members?

This is one of the harder decisions.

An obituary does not require you to pretend an estranged relationship was close. At the same time, leaving out a child, parent, or sibling can carry a lot of emotional weight.

If the wishes of the person who died are known, start there.

Otherwise, consider:

• How the deceased described the relationship
• How long the estrangement lasted
• Whether there had been recent contact or reconciliation
• Whether the omission would create more harm than a neutral mention

You can sometimes solve the problem with factual language.

That sentence does not claim all three relationships were close.

There is no perfect answer for every family. The goal is accuracy without using the obituary to continue a conflict.

Should nieces, nephews, cousins and other extended family be named?

They can be, especially if the person was particularly close to them.

But you do not need to name every member of a large extended family.

You might write:

Or name the people who had especially close relationships:

If someone functioned more like a child or sibling than a niece, nephew or cousin, it is fine to give that relationship more space.

Do you have to list every grandchild and great-grandchild by name?

No.

Large families can make an obituary very long, especially if you are paying a newspaper by the word or line.

You can name everyone if you want to.

You can also summarize:

Another option is to name grandchildren and summarize great-grandchildren, or vice versa.

There is no etiquette rule that says every person must be listed individually.

The important thing is to be consistent enough that the choices do not look accidental.

In what order should family members be listed?

There is no required order, but a common pattern for surviving family is:

1. Spouse or partner
2. Children and their spouses or partners
3. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren
4. Parents
5. Siblings
6. Extended family and other important relationships

For people who preceded the deceased in death, families often list a spouse or partner, children, parents and siblings.

Again, this is a convention, not a rule.

If the person's closest relationship was with a sister who cared for them for years, there is nothing wrong with giving that relationship more prominence.

What if family members disagree about who should be included?

This is completely normal and happens more often than you would expect.

When two people are arguing about whether someone "counts" as family, the disagreement is usually about the relationship, not obituary formatting.

A useful question is:

If they consistently called someone their daughter, partner, sister, grandchild or best friend, that tells you something.

You can also separate factual questions from emotional ones.

Whether someone's name is spelled correctly is a fact. Whether an estranged relative should be included is a family decision.

If several people are contributing to the obituary, choose one person to prepare the final version. Otherwise, you can end up with different relatives making different edits and no one quite sure which version is final.

A family listing example

Here is one example of how a blended family could be handled without overexplaining every relationship:

That wording makes room for the relationships without turning the obituary into a family-history lesson.

Another family might simply call all four people "her children." That can be equally appropriate if that is how Linda and the family understood the relationships.

What matters most when deciding who belongs?

Try not to make the obituary pass a test that real life never passed.

Families can be close, distant, blended, complicated, biological, adopted, chosen, legally connected or not legally connected at all.

Ask who mattered to the person. Ask how they described those relationships. Then use language that is accurate and kind without pretending the family was something it was not.

If you are ready to put the rest of the obituary together, continue with our step-by-step guide to writing an obituary. If you are stuck on the first sentence, see how to start an obituary.