Monday, August 3, 2009

Mary Gillen Qinn's Death Certificate, 2/8/1941

Earlier this week, I finally had the opportunity to scan some documents I'd had laying around. I tend to transcribe rather than scan, although it would be better, of course, to eventually scan everything I have. The morning I chose to scan, however, was a beautiful sunny Saturday, and so I allotted myself 45 minutes, and decided that after that, I'd put away my genealogy and technology and go outside. I started with the documents I hadn't yet transcribed, or for which my transcriptions seemed particularly inadequate. Below are the scanned images of Mary Gillen Quinn's death certificate:

She died at Kings County Hospital on February 8, 1941, at 11:56 PM, at the age, according to this, of 75 years, 11 months, and 11 days. If that's entirely accurate, her birthday was either February 25, 1865 or February 28, 1865. I used this handy date subtraction tool to figure that out, before realizing that her birthday was recorded on the death certificate, too, according to which she was, in fact, born February 28, 1865. She lived at 524 Fifth St., which is also listed as the address of her son Terrence, who filled out the death certificate. Her profession was keeping her own house. She's said to have been in this country for 50 years, which, if accurate, would mean she immigrated in 1891 at the age of about 26. Her parents' names are given as Martin Gillen (also the name of her first son) Mary Nora Grimes. Certainly that gives to meaning to the fact that her first two daughters were Nora and Mary - perhaps Nora/Agnes was Nora Agnes or Agnes Nora? She'd been in the hospital 10 days, and the doctor was with her when she died (note that he says he last saw her alive the minute before her time of death). She died of Diabetes Mellitus and Gangrene of the left foot, contributed to be Arteriosclerotic Heart Disease. She was buried February 11, 1941 at Holy Cross. The second page simply certifies that her death was not found to be suspicious.

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