Cause Of Death
As you are, no doubt, aware, I am an avid contributor to Find A Grave (you can find loads of old posts regarding FAG, I'm not going to bother supplying them all). Part of the reason I do it is to help others, like me, who are avid genealogists, and the other part is purely selfish - I do it because I enjoy it. Call me bizarre, but I find cemeteries to be great re-energizers, and I've discovered that when I don't get to a cemetery for an extended period, I actually get rather cranky; but as soon as I go, I'm calm and relaxed for days (as evidenced by my nearly complete lack of road rage on the way to work today).
But part of the FAG experience isn't simply wandering around a graveyard, looking for people long dead, it's also creating the profiles for people who have, for whatever reason, thus far been missed. One of the resources I use to gather information about people before making their memorials is the Utah State Archives. They have a good number of death certificates digitized and available to the general public for genealogical purposes. Through this resource, I have been able to find the certificates for a number of my ancestors, as well as some of the dozens of random people I've come across in my FAG-ing.
If strolling around cities of the dead is interesting, reading their death certificates is illuminating. Not all, of course, as some people were lucky enough to die from very mundane causes. But four of my most recent discoveries were a bit special.
Two of these people, brothers, died from complications directly related to syphilis, and a third, a young boy, died from "intracranial...(hemorrhage)" as the result of a fall from a wagon and being twisted in the wheel (early auto accident??).
Apart from being a source of intriguing information, death certificates can also impart other information. The most obvious being parents names, dates and places of birth and death, and places of burial...or not, as the case may be.
Another death certificate I came across this weekend belongs to a fellow who was cremated...apparently by the University of Utah medical department. Which suggests that he was a body donor. Having gone through the Utah State University anatomy course, I am well acquainted with what happens to people who donate their bodies to science. But I had never, up until this weekend, come across the result of that donation, death certificate-wise. Having been in the program, the little bit of information that is provided on the certificate of a body donor makes sense to me - perhaps not so much to the uninitiated.
Through my volunteering with FAG, I have had the joy (and sorrow) of visiting many cemeteries, learning about people I never knew existed, and being a part of something that benefits both the living and the dead. And I truly love what I do.
But part of the FAG experience isn't simply wandering around a graveyard, looking for people long dead, it's also creating the profiles for people who have, for whatever reason, thus far been missed. One of the resources I use to gather information about people before making their memorials is the Utah State Archives. They have a good number of death certificates digitized and available to the general public for genealogical purposes. Through this resource, I have been able to find the certificates for a number of my ancestors, as well as some of the dozens of random people I've come across in my FAG-ing.
If strolling around cities of the dead is interesting, reading their death certificates is illuminating. Not all, of course, as some people were lucky enough to die from very mundane causes. But four of my most recent discoveries were a bit special.
Two of these people, brothers, died from complications directly related to syphilis, and a third, a young boy, died from "intracranial...(hemorrhage)" as the result of a fall from a wagon and being twisted in the wheel (early auto accident??).
Apart from being a source of intriguing information, death certificates can also impart other information. The most obvious being parents names, dates and places of birth and death, and places of burial...or not, as the case may be.
Another death certificate I came across this weekend belongs to a fellow who was cremated...apparently by the University of Utah medical department. Which suggests that he was a body donor. Having gone through the Utah State University anatomy course, I am well acquainted with what happens to people who donate their bodies to science. But I had never, up until this weekend, come across the result of that donation, death certificate-wise. Having been in the program, the little bit of information that is provided on the certificate of a body donor makes sense to me - perhaps not so much to the uninitiated.
Through my volunteering with FAG, I have had the joy (and sorrow) of visiting many cemeteries, learning about people I never knew existed, and being a part of something that benefits both the living and the dead. And I truly love what I do.
Kommentarer
Trackback
