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Archiver > TMG > 2002-06 > 1022940488


From: "Darrell A. Martin" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Place of death
Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2002 09:10:12 -0500
In-Reply-To: <fd.18b4e0bf.2a2a2ad0@aol.com>


At 09:49 AM 6/1/02 -0400, wrote:
>There probably is no correct way to handle this, but everyone has their
>opinion and I will give you mine. I generally do not fill in primary fields
>of data bases at all unless I have some sort of primary record of the event.
>So for me, the place of death ought to be where the record of the death lives
>. My own father died in a St Louis Veterans Hospital while he lived in a
>small town in Illinois some 60 miles away. I list him as dying in St Louis
>because that is where the death certificate resides. So if a future reader of
>my information wants to know something about my father's death he has a
>primary record to go to and start from. Quite often I do not really know the
>place of death for an early ancestor. The only record may be a gravestone in
>a cemetery somewhere. Again I opt for where the record lives, in this case
>the only record being the gravestone. Of course, I back up this information
>with memos, footnotes etc explaining what ever needs to be explained. My
>motto is "Follow the records".-Dale Mueller

Dale:

I may be misunderstanding you, but why ever would you record a death as
occurring in a town where you found the record, if that record itself said
he died in another town? What does "where the record of the death lives"
have to do with the death? It has everything to do with the SOURCE, and
being able to find it, of course. But the TAG entry *HAS* to be the actual
recorded place of death; nothing else makes sense. If I used your method
more than half my ancestors died in Chicago's Newberry Library or the Great
Lakes Regional Branch of the National Archives, long before either was
built [grin].

BTW, on the original question, if someone is so confused by genealogical
reports that they misinterpret a place of death as a place of residence, I
will try to explain -- but I am writing for those who know, or are willing
to learn, not for those who are willfully ignorant.

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois



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