Reporting Infant Deaths at the Szczecin Civil Records Office in the Late 19th Century: General Conclusions

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the structural characteristics of the information held in Civil Registry Office records on people reporting the death of an infant. Some fifteen thousand death records held at the CRO in Szczecin (Stettin) at the end of the 19th century were examined in order to answer the fundamental question of what research information is provided by people reporting the death of an infant. The research shows that despite the sparse information in the CRO files on people reporting infant deaths, interesting relationships can be observed. These include professional or family ties between the notifiers and the parents of the deceased infants.

Keywords

• reporting persons
• infant mortality
• deaths
• historical demography
• 19th century
• record books