Frances Have you checked for any newspaper reports of shipping 'intelligence' about the right time? Was the Anna on her way to India or from it, and do you have an exact date when George died? "The Bombay Courier" is available digitised for the right time period, as part of this set "Eighteenth Century Journals: Newspapers and Periodicals 1685 - 1815" by Adam Matthews. Looking at an issue for 27 December 1800, I see a brief note of Cape Intelligence copied from the Cape Town Gazette of August 16. This suggests that any mention of the Anna and Danish ship incident will be reported at least 4 months later. There were Danish factories at Tranquebar and at Frederiksnagore (Serampore), so the Danish ship could have been making its way to either of those places. Sylvia > -----Original Message----- > From: fbsingh1947@aol.com [mailto:fbsingh1947@aol.com] > Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 12:09 AM > To: INDIA@rootsweb.com > Subject: [INDIA] East India Company Ship Question > > > Hello, > > I continue to investigate the life of George Cumming. He > died in December 1800 on board the Anna, somewhere around the > Cape of Good Hope. The ship's journal states that his > effects were transferred to a Danish ship. The captain's > handwriting and syntax are both problematic so I can't tell > if his body was,too.

Thank you, Sylvia, for the promising lead. I am not writing from home at the moment so cannot give you the exact date of George's death, but it was in the last week of December 1800. The captain of the ship on which he died was Patrick Clark; he died off the Cape of Good Hope. The ship was on its way back to England. I am not sure whether he wanted to disembark at the Cape or in England. In his last extant letter, he talks of looking for a promotion either in Bombay or at the Cape. On another matter, could you please tell me how to access the work you cite, Eighteenth-Century Newspapers and Journals? I have access to ECCO but didn't see it there. I would be thrilled if the Cape Intelligencer or some other periodical carried news of the transfer of effects. His death was announced in the Gentleman's Magazine and such like periodicals. Recently, (I think) a lister mentioned that he had found a baptismal record for an 18th century ancestor in the IOR archives. I was wondering what the shelf mark of those records might be. Thanks. Frances