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On This Day: Births, marriages and deaths to be registered


Rarely do I pull my On This Day features from the legal/classified section of the paper, but today is an exception. On This Day in 1881, the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer printed a “Supplement to an Ordinance” which established a Board of Health and Regulations. It also noted the requirements to register all births and marriages and now deaths as well!

The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had passed an act titled “An Act Relating to Registration of Births and Marriages by Boards of Health wherever established by law in the cities of this Commonwealth.” 

The ordinance mandated that when anyone died in the City, the physician or coroner must make a “faithful return” which should include the name, age, sex, color, nationality, date of death and the cause of death. 

Source
Lancaster Daily Intelligencer. (Lancaster, PA), 9 November 1881. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.  

 

On This Day is a prompt to further explore historical events.
                

© Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2015
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Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 9, 2015 at 7:41 AM

    I wish this was earlier! I have a lot of family from Lancaster County PA but one in particular was born in 1824 and moved to Ohio where she married in 1842. I am struggling with finding any premarital information about her life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Genealogical GemsNovember 9, 2015 at 8:39 PM

    Stacey,
    Who are you seeking? Do you know her parents?
    I will keep an eye open for her.

    ReplyDelete

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