Seeking 3d Great Grandfather's Death Records

Was he in a sanitarium in California? Also, if you want help many of us find it easier if you give us the name and other relevant information you have. I am a volunteer transcriber and I can help more by searching by myself. I don't know all of the available resources and I have found you can waste a lot of time looking for the resource instead of just searching for the person. The experts may feel otherwise.

Good luck,

Henry

Hi Desiree,

Transport records would have been held by two funeral homes—the one on the sending end, and the one on the receiving end. That said, those records were rarely kept for long periods of time, so the odds of finding either set of documents is minimal.

Here’s the approach I suggest:

1. Contact the cemetery to see if/where burial records are for 1888. Might have their own records...might be with the city or county...differs from cemetery to cemetery.

2. Consult the records to identify the receiving funeral home.

3. Contact the funeral home to ask if they have any documentation associated with your family member. Ideally, make contact by email, giving the director or staff member freedom to attend to their duties first, then address your request when available.

If (and that’s a big “if”) they have paperwork, it should include information about the funeral home in California.

4. If the California funeral home isn’t currently listed online, you may need to research its history, as if it were a person. Find out who owned it, search newspapers for articles about the business and its owners, and try to determine how/when it ceased to operate. Might have been a name change, a change of ownership, or a business that simply closed down. If the first two, track the records through new owners; if the third, try local historical/genealogical societies and the state historical society to see if any of their records were archived.

Most important, keep your expectations in check. Finding transport documents is a long shot, but if they exist, there may be some valuable clues.

Cinda Baxter, CG

Dear Ms. Williams,

Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!

The State of California did not begin recording deaths of its residents until 1905. Please see Vital Records Obtaining Certified Copies of Death Records; and California Vital Records Genealogy websites for additional information. Please note that the practice of registering deaths in most states did not exist until the 20th century.

We suggest that you review the National Institute of Health (NIH) Library website for research assistance about medical practices in the 1880s; and the California Railroad Museum Library & Archives website for additional information and/or resources. Although private railroad companies may have kept cargo manifests, the exact contents of the records and length of retention varied from company to company. You will need to know the name of the company that transported your ancestor’s body from California to Wisconsin in order to obtain records relevant to your research.

You may wish to search the Wisconsin Historical Society About Our Cemetery Records Collections; Wisconsin State Law Library: Funerals / Burials / Cemeteries;  How Southern California became the rehab capital of America; and History of tuberculosis websites for more information.

We hope this information is helpful. Best of luck with your research!