Italian death certificates regarding cause of death

[acartia]

I understand that Italian death certificates say 1860s-1920s do not give a cause of death. But say if a death was by suicide, homicide, or accidental are they ever stated as such on an Italian death certificate from that era? Also what happens with a stillborn child.Is it registered as a birth only or a death only or both or neither? John

[Italysearcher]

You are right that death certificates do not usually state cause of death however I have seen suicide, homicide and accidental if a child for example a drowning.
A child born dead will often state 'nato morto', but if they died after being baptised there will be a separate death record that will not state cause of death.

[acartia]

I appreciate your response Ann. As I have only had about 6 certificates from Italy at this stage. My interest is really an academic or comparative interest, more than anything I have so far found on my Italian certificates. I have a lot of Australian certificates from my mothers side of the family, and of course Australian death certificates of that era always have cause of death.I actually have two death certificates where an inquest had to be performed as both deaths were sudden and unexpected.But both were found due to natural causes after they were further investigated. One was actually my mothers aunt who died while crossing a road, so it was thought at first a car may have been involved, but the inquest showed she died of a heart attack while on the road, with no car contact found. I did also try to track down a couple of stillbirths, but they never seemed to be recorded in either births or deaths, and I am not really sure if was compulsory to record them anyhow in that era. One excellent thing on the Italian birth and death certificates is recording the street and house number where the event took place. Down here they only recorded the city/town and certainly no street or house number. Thanks Ann for letting me know what you can sometimes find in terms of say unnatural deaths and stillborn events on Italian death certificates. John