About the Database
The following information about people buried from the Bell Funeral Home has been collected from copies of death certificates (sometimes typed and other times handwritten) and/or from transportation of corpse forms that accompanied remains shipped from one place to another. By general agreement information on cause of death, specific address of deceased, occupation or financial information has been omitted.As with transcription from any handwritten documents judgments had to be made in reading. When a name spelling error was known to the transcribers, the information was nonetheless entered as given on the original papers.
Transportation forms typically included only name, date and place of death although some were nearly as complete as a death certificate. Transportation forms could be one of several varieties. Shipment: from another state or other Virginia locations to Charlottesville/ Albemarle; from Charlottesville to Albemarle; or from Charlottesville to other Virginia locations. In many instances bodies were brought to Charlottesville without the precise place of burial given.
As much of the following information that was available has been recorded in the database.
- Last Name
- First Name (followed by middle name if other than maiden name)
- Date of Birth (given in the format month/day/year).
- Place of Birth
- Parents' Name(s)
- Maiden Name; name of Mother before marriage
- Date of death (given in the format month/day/year). In a few instances when the date of death was missing but the date of burial provided the missing death date was calculated from the date of burial minus two days.
- Place of Death (given as fully as possible). Some hospital names reveal the cause of death so they have not been included. The main of example of this is the large number of deaths from tuberculosis sanatoriums. Those who died at University of Virginia Hospital are noted as dying in Charlottesville.
- Place of Burial. precision on the papers varied from the name of the Church cemetery, family cemetery, community name, or transported to Charlottesville (see above).
- Other information. Includes information to help identify the individual, such as spouse's name, approximate age at death, Social Security Number or note of service in World War I.