Body Transit Records In an effort to stem the spread of communicable diseases, local governments in many states required that bodies arriving in their jurisdiction be registered. The resulting records cover a large number of individuals. As B-Ann Moorhouse, CG, FGBS, suggested in an article in The NYG&B Newsletter (Moorhouse, 1992), "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 Staten Island housewife whose body was being shipped 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." Moorhouse also notes that the registrations also applied to bodies being shipped in the opposite direction. An example given in this article is that of the transit of Abraham Lincoln, whose body passed through New York City on 24 April 1865. Biographical information included in the Lincoln record includes his age (52 years, 2 months), nativity (Kentucky), place of death (Washington, DC), date of death (15 April 1865), disease (pistol shot), place of interment (Springfield, Ill.), and name and address of person having charge of the body (P. Relyea). Bodies in Transit, the records for New York City covering the years 1859 to 1894, have been microfilmed and are available at the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, and through the Family History Library. Body transit records are also available for a number of other locations. Transit permits may also be interfiled with death records in the place where the burial took place. Selected Reading Moorehouse, B-Ann. "Little-Publicized New York City Sources." The NYG& B Newsletter. New York: New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (Summer 1992, p. 11). [Editor's Note: For more on burial and transit permits, see George Morgan's article <A HREF="http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/george/27.asp">"Using Burial Permits as Resources."</A>] Enjoy Brenda Brenda K. Wolfgram Moore Ancestral Lineages by Kingsley http://genealogypro.com/kingsley.html kingsley@aol.com http://grandtraverseregion.com website: for Michigan counties: Benzie, GrandTraverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau surnames: Wolfgram, Kratochvil, Secor/Sicard, Jacques,Leguerre, Vallee and and