Clarifying dates in a burial record
UK, England, Lancashire—Nonconformist Church Records, 1647–1996 [Part B][MSGW-MLT]
It's a burial record with two dates at the beginning of each line on the first page with another date on the second page. It's unusual having so many buried the same day they died - that's why I'm wondering.
Is the first date the death date with the second the burial?
Jane
Answers
-
To me it looks like the dates on first page are - death ,, burial and on the second page - burial.
Example:
death ,, burial | ,, burial
[9th line] 12 ,, 13 Richard Murphy ... | ,,13
0 -
Keep in mind this is an advanced project and depends on the indexers being experienced with these records. If you feel uncomfortable indexing them then please return them.
- Project Instructions, What to Remember about this Project, bullet point 7 (not counting the blank bullet point): When indexing burial records , if a date was recorded but not identified, index it as the burial date. If 2 dates were recorded and separated by a slash, index the first date as the death date and the second date as the burial date.
1 -
Thank you for your replies, I appreciate it. I feel that I am experienced with over 40,000 records indexed. I have rarely seen so many people buried the same day as they died. That is why I began to wonder if I was misunderstanding something.
2 -
You are very experienced then! The only time I saw so many burials was during the plague. In googling I see there was a massive epidemic of cholera from 1836-1842. Perhaps this explains it?
1 -
That could very well explain it. It's so sad to see child after child after child being buried. One must deal with what life gives you, but it must have been so very difficult.
0 -
I am working on the India Madras Diocese Protestant Church collection and found a bunch of people dying and being buried the same day. After a little research, I too found it was a cholera epidemic. Mass burials (cholera pits) were not uncommon during cholera epidemics.
0
