BURIALS - ST THOMAS PORT MACQUARIE

 
 
There were 364 burials performed at St Thomas during this decade. On average 
about three every month.
 
The information recorded for each burial is as follows:
 burial date
 death date (after 1838)
 Christian name
 family name
 age
 abode
 civil status at time of death
 year and ship of arrival
 quality or profession
  officiating minister
 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 Rev. John Cross continued his incumbency from the previous decade 
and remained for the entire decade.
 
At the beginning of this decade the information to be recorded on the 
official government supplied forms for each burial was; reference number, 
date of burial, Christian name of the deceased, family name of the deceased, 
age, abode, ship of arrival, quality or profession and officiating 
minister. 
 
Regrettably in 1839 the 'Ship of Arrival' column was removed from the 
official forms altogether but it was still occasionally recorded by 
nothing like as often as previously. The year and ship of arrival have 
been heavily researched outside the parish register.
 
The 'Ship of Arrival' column was replaced by a 'Date of Death' column, 
making identification much more difficult.
 
Genealogists can only be eternally grateful to Rev.Cross for his diligent 
recording of ships of arrival, there were only three instances where 
this was not recorded.
 
For the colonial born their year of birth and parents names are recorded 
in the 'Ship of Arrival' column.
 
The ages at death ranged from Joseph Murphy who only lived for 12 hour and 
William Doyle who lived 1 day to Hamilton Gillespie who was 86 and John 
Robbins who was 88.
 
Being a settlement of secondary punishment there were not many children 
at Port Macquarie which is reflected in the low number and percentage 
(26 and 7%) of infants who did not live past their fifth birthday.
 
Charles Lee who died on the 29th December 1840 but was not buried until 
the 1st January 1841 has been included on this list
 
The identity of the deceased at St Thomas has been discovered in 310 (or 85% of) 
cases during this decade.
 
There were three burials in the State Archives Pioneer Series file which 
have no entry on this parish register. It is very likely that these result 
from typographical errors and relate to post 1840 burials.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry 
in the original source document. 
 
The reference numbers for St Thomas continued from the previous decade 
at B022 and ran to B282 at the end of 1838 then re-initialized to 
C001 in 1839 and concluded at C102 by 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 "STPM" 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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