Question about when a child died on board...

[djm1228]

Was a death certificate recorded when they got to port?

Thanks, Diane

[johnnyonthespot]

Do you have a ship's passenger manifest? If so, there should be a notation on the line with the child's name concerning his/her death.

I don't think a death certificate would have been created other than perhaps one created by the ship's doctor and probably a statement included with the manifest; go all the way to the last page of the manifest and start paging backwards to see if you can find such a statement.

See Paragraph 132 - Death of passenger: http://books.google.com/books?id=HnbNAA ... &q&f=false

Question: do you know for certain that the child died aboard ship? Or, are you trying to account for a child who went missing between the time of emigration and the first available US census?

[JohnArmellino]

Occasionally, when someone dies on board, a death record is recorded in Parte II of the death records, or in the diversi records, in the town of origin. [Of course, any death that takes place away from the town of origin might be recorded among these records.] I once came across a death record that gave the latitude and longitude of the place of death on the high seas. However, most often the death is not recorded in the town of origin. I suppose it depended on whether family members remained in the town and how diligent they were about record-keeping.

[Italysearcher]

If they notified the Italian Consulate they would report the death (or birth or marriage)to the town of origin.

[djm1228]

http://www.castlegarden.org/quick_searc ... d=10473127

Here's the link to the note about the death on board

[johnnyonthespot]

Here is the actual manifest page:



Click to enlarge.

The Nardiello family begins about two-thirds of the way down the page. For Giuseppe, you will see a notation in the next-to-last column, "Died on the Voyage". I can't quite make out what it says:


tiff upload

There are two likely possibilities, to my thinking:

1) Giuseppe's parents may or may not have notified his birth comune of the death. Technically, this was a requirement, but since most Italians who came to the US had no intention of returning to Italy, they felt no need to keep the comune informed of vital events. If they had done so, most of us would find our jure sanguinis case much easier as, at the very least, our first US-born ancestor (my father, for example) would have been already registered in Italy.

2) If the body was not buried at sea, then it would have had to been taken off the boat at the receiving port. Obviously, that would mean it had to be attended to and properly buried and, for that, I would assume a death certificate would have been required. Therefore, I think there is a good possibility that a death certificate may be on file in New York City. See http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/vi ... eath.shtml

You might try using this online form to ask NYC vital records about the procedures which may have been in place in the 1880's: http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/vr/v ... form.shtml

[Tessa78]

The notation looks to read "23rd Feb 1881" -

T.

[acartia]

I agree with Tessa on that.It just looks like the date of death, the 23th etc. The other child that perished on the trip looks like "drowned" and the date, but I am open to correction on that. Falling overboard or what? Makes one shudder reading it. John