Murdered in Québec Canada, Death Certificate

[dwkitchen]

The story is that my Grt. Grandfather was murdered in Quebec on the 16 Aug 1919. He was in the Merchant Navy and was on the SS Norfolk Range.

I have tried finding his death certificate on 1837 online for deaths over seas but to no avail, I have also triad searching to sea if it was registered in the England. Could it have been registered in Canada and how would I find it.

I have also tried finding an obituary in the Hull Daily Mail, where his family where still living, but it is not mentioned.

There is a monumental inscription which was put up in 1949 when his wife died. This quotes that he drowned.

[wallaby]

Hi dwkitchen,
   Have you tried www.canada.ca
There you can find addresses to write to for death certificates.  Also I have found several family members from ww1 listed on the site.  It is very helpful.  Another good Canadian site is www.islandnet.com
Good luck with your search.
Wallaby

[Timbottawa]

Because Canada has a federal system of government, I think you are most likely to find information on events in Quebec in 1919 from the Quebec National Archives.  The address is:

http://www.anq.gouv.qc.ca/

As far as I can see, the site is only in French, so hopefully that's OK (I tried a search for "meurtre" and 1919, but it turned up nothing ... a search of the name would be better).  But if you write to them in English, I'm sure that will be OK too.

Good luck

Tim

[Carmela]

Unfortunately, your gt.grandfather died at a very inconvenient time as far as Quebec death records are concerned. Records of deaths between 1900 and 1926
are available only from the following office:

Ministère de la Justice
Direction de l’état civil
Service à la clientèle
205, rue Montmagny
Québec, QC
Canada
G1N 4T2
 
If you write to them in English, I am sure they would answer. I think the cost is about the same as UK certs. Give full details of your gt. grandfather, date and place of death (city or town where his ship was docked when he died). And most important, be sure to include his religion. Religion would be very important as death records in Quebec were kept by churches ( a duplicate of church registers deposited at the court house, served as civil registration). There was no real civil registration before 1994.

If there is any truth in the murder story or even if he drowned, there would have been an inquest and perhaps newspaper reports. These are other avenues
that you might explore.

If you would like some more help, I am willing to do some online searching, if you can give me his name and the place where he died. I don't know if there is much to be found online, but as I have done genealogical research in Quebec, I might be able to find something.

hth,
Carmela

[~meg]

Hi dw,
You might also be interested in checking out the Canadian Genealogy Centre’s site.  Under the section Deaths/Burials:
“Records relating to accidental deaths that involved water, land or air transport can be found in our Canadian Transport Commission fonds (RG 46) for 1904 to 1976. Records can be searched using the Government of Canada Files database.

You can search through the database using the key words, surname and “killed,” “death,” “died,” “murdered” or “fatal”."

Here’s the link: http://www.genealogy.gc.ca/10/100603_e.html

~meg

[Josephine]

dwkitchen,

Another thought would be to get a copy of his military record.  If he died while serving in the military, there should be something about it in his file.

P.S.  Have you searched The London Gazette online database:
http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/archiveSearch.asp?WebType=0
(If he was in the British Navy, that is.)

Regards,
Josephine

[J.A.M.]

You might also want to try the University of St. John in Newfoundland as they have a maritime museum with just about everything connected to Canadian Maritime ships & some for other nations that sailed those waters.
Good hunting.

[Carmela]

J.A.M.,
 ???There is no such thing as the University of St. John in Newfoundland. I think you meant Memorial University which is situated in the city of St. John's, Nfld. ?
Hope you don,t mind my interfering, but I just couldn't let that one go by.
 
Carmela