BURIALS - ST JOSEPHS MAITLAND

 
 
The first burial was performed at St Josephs on 15th April 1836. There 
were 84 further burials performed during this decade. On average about 
one burial per month.
 
The information recorded for each burial is as follows:
 burial date
 Christian name
 family name
 age
 abode
 civil status at time of death
 year and ship of arrival
 quality or profession
 reference number
 
Various miscellaneous remarks in the register have been recorded as 
'end-notes' at the bottom of the list.
 
The burials are listed in chronological order. The records in the register 
are not always in strict chronological order but this has been corrected 
in this work.
 
The burial register did not record the officiating minister however 
it is known that the first chaplain of St Josephs was the Reverend Father 
James Watkins. He was replaced in 1836 by Reverend Father Christopher 
Dowling, who in turn was replaced in 1839 by Reverend Father Edmund Mahoney 
who administed the parish until 1843. The Reverend Father John Thomas 
Lynch also worked periodically at the parish from 1838 to 1840.
 
At the time of commencement of St Josephs the information to be recorded 
for each burial was; reference number, 
date of burial, Christian name of the deceased, family name of the deceased, 
age, abode, ship of arrival and quality or profession. Unfortunately the 
ship of arrival was only recorded for serving convicts and then quite 
rarely.
 
For the colonial born their year of birth and parents names are recorded 
in the ship of arrival column.
 
St Josephs does not appear to have used the official government forms 
in recording its burials. As a consequence there are no 'Dates of Death' 
in 1839 and 1840.
 
The ages of the deceased ranged from one day for Henry Clinch 
to 102 years for John O'Donnell (but there is no corroborating evidence 
to support this age). In eleven cases no age was recorded. The number 
of infants who did not live past their fifth birthday was 19 or 23% of 
burials.
 
Despite extensive research the identity of the deceased at St Josephs 
has only been discovered in 46 (or 54% of) cases during this decade.
 
There were no less that twenty five burials recorded which are 
duplicate entries; twenty three from St Peters East Maitland and two 
from Christ Church Newcastle. Information from both registers has 
been shared to create a fuller picture of the deceased, for example 
all the 'abode' data for St Josephs came from St Peters except for 
one. In a number of cases it is noted that the information recorded 
differs in some respects from its pair.
 
There was one burial in the State Archives Pioneer Series file which 
has no entry on this parish register. 
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry 
in the original source document. The reference numbers for St Josephs run 
sequentially from 0001 to 0085 at the end of the decade.
 
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search on the 
name would be made on List 5 using code "SJMR" from which the date of 
burial would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate date, the 
burial would then be located on this list.

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