Mortuary Records of Chinese Decedents in California

[LJ]

Hello fellow genealogists,

I just discovered that the SFgenealogy website has posted an image database of A4040 - Mortuary Records of Chinese Decedents in California, July 1870-April 1933. The source is a set of microfiche rolls at the National Archives and Records Administration. Unfortunately, the database is not searchable. However, I did do some preliminary mapping of the database, and determined that it contains 1120 images and seems to start with the most recent records and end with the earliest.

If you have ancestors who resided in California, you may find these of interest.

Best regards,
LJeung

[gckimm]

Thank you, LJeung, for helping to make this valuable resource available to people. For those who are able to subscribe to Ancestry.com, the Chinese mortuary records are there also, and you will be able to zoom in for a closer look.

If you are lucky, the mortuary records will tell you not only the age, the date of death, the occupation, the address, the cause of death, and the burial place but also the name of a surviving spouse, parent, or other relative. Remember that the remains of most people buried in San Francisco were eventually moved to the city of Colma and that the bones of some Chinese were shipped back to China for reburial after some years had gone by.

It might be helpful for people to know that these records are limited for Chinese Americans who died outside San Francisco. For those persons, there are records only from April 1905 to October 1918. I don't know why.

Greg