Milltown Cemetery, 1942 Infant Death and Burial Records

Detail Data
June 14, 2017

http://data.nicva.org/dataset/milltown-cemetery-1942-infant-death-and-burial-records

Information from burial records and death certificates of children from Nazareth House and Nazareth Lodge in Belfast who died in 1942.

There are 63 children identified in the records as having died in 1942, including 43 babies who died from marasmus (malnutrition). Burial records are available only on microfilm and 1942 was chosen as records for that year were the most clearly legible.

The table was created by Detail Data using information from Milltown Cemetery's burial records - owned by Down and Connor Diocese and available from the Public Records Office of NI - and death certificates from the General Register Office NI. Children's surnames have been removed at the request of Down and Connor Diocese, due to Data Protection legislation, to prevent the potential identification of living relatives. Parents' names and children's former addresses have also been removed.

The Nazareth babies were among 388 children aged under 18 interred in Milltown Cemetery’s Public Ground site that year. Detail Data’s investigation identified the cause of death for 56 of the 63 children identified in the burial records through searching for matching death certificates held by the General Register Office.

As well as being unable to locate seven certificates, information in the burial records contradicted details recorded on the death certificates found by Detail Data. For example one death certificate states that the child died 10 days after the recorded burial date from the burial record. Children’s ages vary widely between the two sets of records, in some cases their gender is contradicted and the date of death comes after the burial date in at least nine cases involving the deaths of children from the homes. In other cases, the spelling of surnames varies.

In response to our findings, the General Register Officer told Detail Data that it will consider a correction to a death certificate entry if anyone with knowledge of a death comes forward with new information.