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  • Shipping a body home

    If a person came back in a casket from Australia would they just be logged in the normal passenger lists?

    It would be so expensive do you think a single woman of little means would do that around 1950

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    Linda

  • #2
    I don't think a deceased person could be listed as a "passenger" (these are "souls") - the casket would be cargo.

    There would have been a health/hygiene problem with transportation by ship (length of time) which is why there were burials at sea. I doubt air freight too at that time.

    Why do you think the deceased was repatriated? Is it because you've "found" her on a passenger list or because you've come across an MI? In the case of the latter, a name featuring on a gravestone doesn't always mean that that person was actually buried there, just that they were being remembered.

    Jay
    Janet in Yorkshire



    Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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    • #3
      Might it be the cremated remains which returned? In that case, by freight plane rather than passenger flight, although I suppose she could have been (illegally) in someone's luggage.

      An acquaintance died suddenly while abroad and was flown home (as freight). It was horrendously expensive, but paid for by the holiday insurance I THINK. This was about ten years ago.

      I'm with Janet - a name on an MI doesn't mean they are buried there.

      OC

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      • #4
        I agree highly unlikely - the cost alone would be prohibitive and I don't think it would have been allowed due to the hot countries between here and Australia.

        I have an MI in Kirriemuir that gives details of someone who is buried near London but the MI is in the middle of Scotland.



        Researching Irish families: FARMER, McBRIDE McQUADE, McQUAID, KIRK, SANDS/SANAHAN (Cork), BARR,

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        • #5
          Well, there ARE ships with refrigerated holds and bodies can be transported that way...but so horrendously expensive and difficult to arrange.

          OC

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          • #6
            I agree with everyone, I think it would have been way too expensive for an ordinary person to be repatriated for burial in the 1950s. Only those with travel insurance (or a generous government in the case of a disaster like the recent plane crash in Ukraine) can afford not to be buried where they passed away.

            If you think/know she died in Australia, you can search many cemeteries for burials on line. Australian Cemeteries Index has lots of cemeteries with on-line data or generous people who will lookup their hardcopy. You could also see if there are any mention in Trove, the Australian newspapers database, or in the home town local papers.

            On OH's side of the tree, a spinster sister-in-law of one of his great uncles came out to Australia either to stay or visit and suddenly died, and was cremated and put in a niche here, even though most of her family was still in Scotland. At least, this lady and her sister and brother-in-law are in the same crematorium garden.
            Diane
            Sydney Australia
            Avatar: Reuben Edward Page and Lilly Mary Anne Dawson

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            • #7
              Thanks everyone. I am helping someone else who has sketchy information and suddenly threw in 'she came home in a casket' have been trying to get in touch with her today but no answer yet.


              Linda

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              • #8
                I think you need to check what she means by "casket" - coffin, or urn. Cremated remains have (allegedly/according to many jokes) been posted to other countries over the years.

                Jay
                Janet in Yorkshire



                Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                • #9
                  My Great Aunt, certainly not wealthy, or from a wealthy family, died in New York in the 1950's. She had worked for a very rich family there for a number of years, first as a servant and then as Cook. Her body was repatriated to her home village in Nottinghamshire for burial,paid for by her employer- could something like that have happened?
                  The National Archives, Kew – Research Service Offered
                  Contact me via PM on Family Tree Forum or via my personal website - www.militaryandfamilyresearch.co.uk

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by annswabey View Post
                    My Great Aunt, certainly not wealthy, or from a wealthy family, died in New York in the 1950's. She had worked for a very rich family there for a number of years, first as a servant and then as Cook. Her body was repatriated to her home village in Nottinghamshire for burial,paid for by her employer- could something like that have happened?
                    Yes that could be a possible. Thing is we've got her coming back but no sign of her going out or on any census in Australia, but she although the boat came back from Brisbane she could have boarded along the way and never been in Australia at all.

                    Linda

                    Linda

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                    • #11
                      From wikipedia:
                      "Contemporary embalming methods advanced markedly during the height of the British Empire and the American Civil War, as a result of sentimental issues involving foreign officials, business- and service-men dying far from home, and the need for their remains to be returned home for local burial."

                      So, you didn't have to pay for refrigeration/freezing...

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                      • #12
                        Found out a bit more..from the elderly brother, it's like pulling teeth bless him.

                        She came home in an 'urn' and died in the Netherlands.

                        Linda Netherlands

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                        • #13
                          Linda

                          LOL!

                          OC

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                          • #14
                            Lol What happened there then :D

                            Linda

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                            • #15
                              Oh, sorry Linda, I was laughing at the misinformation, not the situation. No offence was intended.

                              OC

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                              • #16
                                Get you completely OC.... I was laughing at my name and being wicked that she came home in an 'urn' and not a ship lol

                                Linda

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                                • #17
                                  Originally posted by Loopy Linda in La La Land View Post
                                  Get you completely OC.... I was laughing at my name and being wicked that she came home in an 'urn' and not a ship lol

                                  Linda
                                  In the not-to-distant past (and I have no idea if the rules have changed) there were strict regulations on shipping the deceased "home" .................. you don't want to ship someone home who has caught Ebola for instance. Certainly in the 60s a deceased person being carried by ship or plane (always in cargo and delivered to cargo sheds at UK airports for undertaker to collect) had to comply with the International Sanitary Regulations who I think were under the auspices of the Council of Europe or maybe the World Health Organization. There were other odd rules also - presumably embalming had to be undertaken - this will, however, preclude a reliable second pm taking place if necessary in receiving country. If the person has a pacemaker it has to be removed before they can fly - not sure if that still applies but at one time there was concern about radioactivity in them. The official documents would have to be in order also. These regulations applied to all countries and if someone died in the Channel Islands for instance and was going to be shipped home to England the same regulations applied.

                                  I imagine most people (the relatives that is) would opt for cremation of remains but some religions would not do this. I guess that some deceased do come home in "pots" in handbags.

                                  Sue

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                                  • #18
                                    From my own experience 10 years ago, it is much the same now as Sue said it was in the 60s. My original plan when my husband died was to fly him home and he would be buried where he grew up alongside/nearby his parents. He was raised a Roman Catholic but very lapsed. As it was going to cost me both arms and several legs just to get him out of Belgium including a fee for crossing every commune never mind transport across the Channel and across all the county boundaries in the UK (even flying!!) and I would still need to have a memorial service in Belgium, I had to compromise. We had a cremation in Brussels and there was a Mass for him in the church where he grew up and then we buried the ashes in with his parents. The undertaker flew the casket across to Heathrow where the English undertaker had to collect it. The casket had to be escorted every step of the way - the paperwork was horrendous, and included various licences but the undertakers sorted it. Had he died of some things, even the ashes could not be transported. It did cost one arm and half a leg in the end and meant that there was a 3 week gap between services. I could of course have put him in a suitcase and gone on the train but didn't quite fancy that and he couldn't have been buried or even scattered in Sleaford Cemetery. I did save some money though - the urn he travelled in was far better than the standard English ones and didn't need replacing.

                                    At the time, my mother and I kept remembering a book we'd read years before about a family, French I think, during WW2 who had really enjoyed some soup made from a can sent to them from the USA .. we never remembered what the book was called though.
                                    Caroline
                                    Caroline's Family History Pages
                                    Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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                                    • #19
                                      My granny's uncle died in 1919 in Canada - the Spanish Flu. His body was taken back to his home in Australia and from there back to the Outer Hebrides to be buried in the cemetery nearest his birth place. It's all been verified - it definitely happened. I think his body was embalmed in Australia before the long journey home.
                                      Kind regards,
                                      William
                                      Particular interests: The Cumming families of Edinkillie & Dallas, Moray

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                                      • #20
                                        Thanks for all your information.

                                        I will see if her brother can remember anything else

                                        Linda

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