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by B-Ann Moorhouse, C.G., F.G.B.S.

Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Summer 1992; updated January 2002

Bodies in Transit at the Municipal Archives of The City of New York is a collection of records, kept only during the years 1859 to 1894, in 10 volumes.

To aid in the prevention of communicable diseases, the Board of Health of the City of New York required that any body arriving in Manhattan via ship, train or even local ferry be registered. Thus, the vacationer who died out West and whose body was being shipped back for burial in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, the New Jersey resident or the Staten Island housewife whose body was being shipped merely across the river for burial in Upstate New York, the Civil War soldier and sailor whose bodies were being shipped back to New England for burial, all were registered with the City. The registration applies as well to bodies being shipped in the opposite direction through the City to the West and South, such as the following entry (brought to my attention by Kenneth R. Cobb, Director of the Municipal Archives) of especial interest which also serves as an example of the information found in these records:

Later minor changes were made in the columnar headings, e.g., "Disease" changed to "Cause of Death"; and by 1869 two more columns were added: "Now at" (i.e., the location of the body) and "How Certified" (by physician or coroner, etc.).

This is a source to be checked when the death record is not found where expected, or the burial record is found but not the death record.

Microfilm of these records is available at the NYG&B Library, the Archives and through the Family History Library: