03 September 2012

An 1848 List of Burials Includes George Liddell

A few images before the 1848 City of Philadelphia death "certificate" for George C. Liddell is a "cover sheet" or sorts for several burials that took place in the Philanthropic Burial Ground in Philadelphia for the week ending 30 September 1848. We've already blogged about his death certificate before. The image that follows is the "cover sheet."

It appears that these certificates were all "recorded" or returned at the same time.

One issue with this material is how it should be cited. There are no page numbers for either this page or the death "certificate" for George C. Liddell. Yet the question of how to get later searchers to these specific records if they need to see them remains. The issue of citation cannot be ignored simply because I already have the images. The easiest way to cite should probably involve the name of the group of records, City of Philadelphia death certificates and the year and name of the entry. A reference to this "cover sheet" is necessary as well as it may impact the perceived reliability of these records.

The fact that these burials were recorded together makes me wonder ever so slightly about potential errors in these records. In the case of George, as mentioned in earlier blog posts, his death record indicates he died in Kington, NY and his obituary indicates he died in NJ. I'm not certain that at this point one can simply say the death "record" is necessarily the most accurate. The "group" nature of these records has me slightly questioning whether the NY reference could be incorrect.

The actual image of the "cover sheet" can be seen here.

On my "to do" list is to look at newspapers for both Kingtons, including ones on Ancestry.com and on Genealogybank.  Newspapers in local libraries, digitally at the Library of Congress, and perhaps in state libraries or historical societies should also be referenced.

Time will tell.