Austin History Center Cemeteries Database notes
The Austin History Center considers the Austin History Center Cemeteries Database to be a search & access tool (public knowledge space) and not a verbatim transcription of the ledger. The original ledgers are available for research at the Austin History Center. The long-term goal of the Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) is to scan the ledgers and make them available online. In addition, the PARD Cemeteries Division is working on verifying all internment information and creating a new City of Austin Cemetery database starting with Oakwood Cemetery. The cemeteries database maintained and updated by PARD will eventually replace the AHC version of the database except for the Mount Calvary Cemetery information.
AHC goals for the existing Cemeteries Database are:
- to reduce harm whenever possible by updating language and providing context when historical language needs to be retained
- create a more navigable tool for the average researcher that doesn’t require extensive knowledge of historical language to have a successful search experience
Informing our work:
A4BLiP Anti-Racist Description Resources Handling Racist Folder Titles and Creator-Sourced Description section
Wright, Kirsten. “Archival interventions and the language we use.” Archival Science (2019): 1-18.
Race/ethnicity - This column was referred to as “Color” in the original cemetery ledgers. We use the terminology “Race/Ethnicity” instead as it better describes, identifies, and categorizes individuals according to a shared history, culture, external characteristics, language, nationality, and other identity markers. To repair harmful and offensive language contained in the original document we use terms within this column that are preferred by the contemporary community and descendants of those referenced in the original source documents. We also chose to use language that is considered respectful and conventional in twenty-first century communities and public records.
Sex – The column labeled “Sex” uses the original designations of “F” (female) and “M” (male) which were used by creators to describe an interred individual’s biological sex.
Place of Birth – referred to as "Nativity" in the original cemetery ledgers and includes country, state, county, and city names as understood by the cemetery employees at the time the information was recorded. Efforts have been made to update abbreviations for a more consistent searching experience and derogatory terms for a person's place of birth have been updated with contemporary place names. Historic place names for countries (i.e., Prussia) have been maintained. Also, be aware that borders are not fixed throughout history and the country names listed in the database are to be understood in historical context.
Cause of Death – referred to as "Disease" in the original cemetery ledgers and was renamed to better reflect the information recorded by the cemetery employees. In 1903, the State Department of Public Health and Vital Statistics began requiring the registration of deaths. Before then, physicians were not mandated to record the key pieces of information found in a modern death certificate: the cause, mechanism, and manner of a death. For example, physicians sometimes recorded suicide as the cause as opposed to the manner of death, or they omitted that a murderer inflicted the traumatic injury that caused a person’s death. Moreover, 19th-early 20th century physicians relied partially on demographic information to determine cause of death, i.e. assigned sex, race, age, heredity, habits, and adjudged mental health at the time of death. Stigmatized “causes” of death listed in the city cemetery ledger include dissipation, insanity, lunacy, several types of mania, and nervous exhaustion or prostration. Such diagnoses do not have present-day counterparts and must be viewed with a critical lens.
Importantly, “cause of death” was a racialized category during Reconstruction and the decades following it. Almost all individuals whose cause of death was described as executions were African American males, and due to poor recordkeeping, researchers must do due diligence to determine whether they were judicial or extrajudicial killings. Relatedly, people of color who were suspects or convicted murderers of individuals listed in the ledger are mentioned by their race alone as opposed to their names. This pattern of racialized language when recording cause of death should also be considered when judging the validity of information provided regarding how individuals of color died.
Where Buried – Most of the historic language was retained because our current understanding of cemetery or section names may not be the same as what the cemetery employees were referencing at the time the information was recorded. The one exception is the language used to refer to the historic African American section of the Oakwood Cemetery. The Parks and Recreation Oakwood Cemeteries staff conducted significant research and held community engagement sessions and an agreement was made to name this section of the cemetery the Historic “Colored Grounds”. As a result, references to "Negro Grounds", "Negro Grave Yard", "Negro Burial Grounds", and "Negro Cemetery" in the database were all updated to Historic "Colored Grounds" to be in line with the Parks and Recreation Department's name for the historic African American section of Oakwood Cemetery. Abbreviations were spelled out to facilitate a more consistent searching experience.
Some people listed in the ledger were buried in the Austin State Hospital (ASH) Cemetery or examined by ASH physicians. In the 19th century, ASH accepted people with dementia, epilepsy, tuberculosis, and other disabilities until additional institutions were built to accommodate specific conditions. Just because an individual was buried at the ASH Cemetery or examined by one of their physicians does not mean that they had mental illnesses. Using records like periodicals, family papers, and probate records can reveal more about the context surrounding the deaths of people identified in this ledger.