Ms. Messer's Comments about the Knox County Death Records

This work was transcribed for me by Wayne A. Shaw of Seymour, TN using the microfilm for the years stated in the title of the book. What I have attempted to do is capitalize the surnames and make it easier to find the locale of either birth or death for the deceased and their parents. Wayne gave me permission to use the database and the rights to the copyright.

The only things that I have changed within the compilation of this work is the adding of information to make it more easily to find where the person was born or is buried and the capitalization of all surnames.

If a name ends with a title, which ordinarily is included in front of the name, such as Dr., Rev., etc, I have entered it like the example below:

ACKER, A. L., Dr. [or] LANGSTON, Samuel, Rev.

For instance: General Hospital, Knox, I have changed this entry in the “Informant”, column to read, General Hospital Records, Knox Co., TN.

What I have done is search and find the county of birth, such as Abingdon, VA, I have changed to Abingdon, Washington Co., VA.

Until I started this project, I was not aware that New York City, NY was in the county of New York, so the entry is listed as “New York City, New York Co., NY”, so the time I have utilized in recording this information has been a great history lesson.

In some instances, I found a city or community listed that was found in more that one county and I have recorded it showing both counties.

For instance:

Benton, TN was recorded as: Benton, TN [Bedford, Marshall or Polk Co.]

If I could not find the name of a cemetery as listed in the U. S. Geological Survey’s Geographic Names and Information System [USGS] and could not verify the location, I have recorded it with a [?] after it. There are many family cemeteries and others, which have either been moved, as in the construction of construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the building of the lakes and dams of the area, or they have simply vanished or were destroyed. There are also many that either do not have any legible information on them for identification. Some have only fieldstones marking the grave and some have literally disappeared altogether. There are at least eleven cemeteries in Knox County for which the name is not known.

Information in this database, such as names that have one or more question mark, [?], within the name can be figured out by most people and especially the family members of the deceased. The surname shown as, JENK???, is fairly evident that the entry is the surname, JENKINS. I have left all the names spelled exactly like the spelling on the original document.

There are many entries that show the surname with different spellings that can be identified as the same one. The person or persons recording entries on the documents most likely spelled the name as they heard it. Even on the same document, there was sometimes more that one spelling of the name. In the case of an entry records as “SHIPE, Mr?. J. S.,” it would most likely be safe to figure that the informant was actually Mrs. J. S. SHIPE. When a person died in a facility, such as a hospital or care center, such as the a home that cared for people when the family could not do so, or the person was without resources to maintain their livelihood. Sometimes a names was pretty much complete, but there was more date recorded on the certificate. These records were recorded as follows:

INALTZ, Nancy [INALTZ, Nancy ?]

One thing to remember in using this transcription is that the transcriber and the compiler can sometimes read an entry on documents differently than someone else, so it is a good idea to check the actual document for your own documentation and interpretation of the data. Another point of information is that the information given on death certificates is only as good as the information known by the informant and the condition of the person giving said data. A person can be very upset when giving that information and may give the wrong data. An example of this is a lady died in North Carolina in 2002 and her son gave the information for both the death certificate and the obituary. The son was so upset that he gave the names of the deceased’s father as that of her brother. It is a good idea not to take one document as a source of proof. You can utilize census records and other documents to verify the validity of the information on any one document.

Some abbreviations or notations in this database include

The information included in this work is setup with headings described below:

Column 1 = Last Name of Deceased

Column 2 = First Name of Deceased

Column 3 = Marital Status [MS] Single=S; Married=M; Divorced=D

Column 4 - Birth Month [BM]

Column 5 = Birth Date [BD]

Column 6 = Birth Year [BY]

Column 7 = Age

                Example: 63-4-23 = 63 years, 4 months, 7 days ; 7d = 7 days

Column 8 = Birth Place [BPLACE]

Column 9= Father

Column 10 = Father's Birth Place [FBP]

Column 11 = Mother

Column 12 = Mother's Birth Place [MBP]

Column 13 = Informant [INFORM]

Column 14 = Death Month [DM]

Column 15 = Death Day [DD]

Column 16 = Death Year [DY]

  Column 17 = Burial Location [BURIAL]

Column 18 = Certificate # [CT]