Can't find death record for PA-based ancestor
I have an ancestor (Michael Borovsky) that died in 1918 (family records say Oct 25, 1918, but I haven't been able to verify). His gravestone does say 1918. His wife and family lived with him in Lansford, PA.
However, I cannot find his name (or any obvious misspellings) in the PA death index, or even searching Ancestry.com's death records.
Any suggestions on how I can find his death certificate or any information related to this death? I can't find anything on newspaper.com for him either.
Thank you!
EDIT: Adding other details:
* Born in the 1880s in Rydodudy, Galicia, Austria (13 Oct 1889 according to two sources, 10 Dec 10 according to another)
* Married 1909 in Lansford, PA
* Immigrated 1907 from Hamburg
* Declared intention to become US citizen in 1906
* Religion believed to be Roman Cathloic. Buried in a roman catholic cemetery, family reports his family was Roman Catholic
Comments
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1918 was the year of the terrible influenza epidemic. The death toll in Pennsylvania was extremely high. At times, officials simply had to make mass graves, and those charged with keeping/making death certificates were overwhelmed.
Even in the mid-2000s, construction workers found mass graves from that time.
Have you contacted the Cemetery where he is buried or the parish church of that location? Catholics normally keep very good records. The records can be tightly held, but it's worth the work of obtaining them.
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That's great context: RE the spanish flu, I did not realize it was that bad in PA back then. That has been one of my theories, but obviously, no way to confirm. My other theory was he was in the war - but I suspect I would have found some sort of military records beyond a draft registration card.
I have contacted the cemetery/parish a while back to confirm he was buried there. The archivist was helpful, and even sent a picture of his and his wife's grave. At the time, only his wife's grave was listed on FindAGrave.com, with no picture. Later, I discovered the archivist's name matches a contributor on FindAGrave.com for that area.
I did find that his parish (St Joseph's) has a microfilm collection at the Family History Library: However, I am nearly 1,000 miles away from there.
I will reach out and ask him again if there any records he can share. I recognize your name from my other somewhat related thread. There's a few potential leads on potential baptism records, but none are an exact match (different birth dates, etc). Hoping a death cert might provide some context or clues.
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I believe this is the same manuscript:
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Thanks! No hits for Michael Borovsky (I do not think he was slovak) or his wife Anna Rohal, but a couple hits for potential relatives I've been researching (George Rohal, Maria Rohal Ochran), who might be related to Anna.
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Found him in the marriage list though: https://www.tccweb.org/Site/pdffiles/MARRIAGE19031933.pdf
Anna is listed as "Krivostany - - Zemplin".. I did not know her hometown before now, that should allow me to search for a baptism record now!
I suspect she is not in the death list as she died in 1962 and that list goes to 1954.
Wish I could give you more than 1 awesome :-)
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Glad if it helped.
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