Place of death

[Keith Nuttle]

I have been working on a family from Berks county Pennsylvania, where a
child and the wife disappear during the Civil War.

I have found some indication that the son may have enlisted in the Union
Army and may have been wounded at about the time the wife disappears.

In trying to explain the facts for ideas for new places to look, I came
upon the scenario where possibly when the wife received notice her son
was wounded, she went to nurse him and they both died of disease.
(Smallpox? etc.)

My question, if they died in say Virginia would their deaths have been
filed with the county/state in which they died, or would they have been
lost in the war. (Assuming that the mother made it to the military
hospital where her son was recovering, I assume there would be a
completely different situation if she died on the way.)

[singhals]

Keith Nuttle wrote:

You've been through the CSRs for the name and for the Unit?
(Two separate areas of the film.) The file on the NAME
will tell you if/where he died, even if it was in a field
hospital.

Otherwise, it is /unlikely/ that the death of a soldier made
it into the county records in Virginia. Since most
able-bodied men under 60 were in the field with the army,
the county clerk's position was being filled by the over-60,
the "4-F" categories, or very informally by the wife of the
real Clerk. In some parts of Virginia, they simply
suspended all such activity for the duration.

Now, if she died en route, without military escort, yes that
would probably have been recorded.

Another place to look would be the home-town newspaper, or
the newspaper in the town(s) where her parents and or
siblings lived.

Cheryl