-----Original Message----- From: Sheila MacAvoy Block <macavoy@cox.net> The film number cited # 1671687 is one of the three films at FHL titled "Bodies In Transit." New York City was so inundated with the bodies of soldiers who died in the fighting during the Civil War that the city fathers elected to require the application for a transit permit in order to allow the bodies to travel across the waters surrounding the city on their way to places in New England. They kept this system in place after the war but it was discontinued in the later part of the 19th C. It means your ancestor definitely died elsewhere than NY City and was transported from that place to a burial ground nearer his family. The film is organized by date and then alphabetically. The information given on the application is as follows; Date of the transit, name of the deceased, age, place of death, DOD, cause of death, place of birth, location of body (at present), place to be interred, how certified, name and address of applicant. This later usually appears to be the name of an undertaker. When you get the information RE place of death you can try to get a death certificate. But there is quite a bit of information in the application. Sheila Santa Barbara