PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Cause of death query (cor?)

dnowicki — Thu Oct 22, 2026 7:39 am

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2026 7:39 am

lenahlene wrote:

I’ve come across a little batch of records which seem to have ‘Cor’ as part of the cause of death and I have no idea what it means or its relevance, as it appears both in the originals and the bishops copy, and the deaths seem to be mostly children but the causes differ. In some cases, the cause of death in the original is simply given as ‘cor’ but the bishop’s copy adds scarlatina. But this word appears in pretty much every death entry for about 6 months, and then disappears and I haven’t seen it anywhere else in the records. Most of the deaths are ‘cur’ or ‘cur et scarlatina’ but not all, there is one ‘cur et convulsiones’, but where ‘scarletina’ is given as the cause of death elsewhere in the books, it’s not accompanied by ‘cur’

These are from 1875, the scans are on FamilySearch film 2037644, image 181 for the original; and the bishop’s copy is film 4945071 images 677 and 678.

Anna Landkammer d.28th Dec is one of the ones which has ‘scarlatina’ added in the bishop’s copy entry but not in the original.

Salvete,

A sine qua non when translating is that the translation must make sense within the context within which the word is found. Just because the word appears to match a word in a genealogical word list does not guarantee that the choice is appropriate within the context. The context here is found in the heading “Morbus et qualitas mortis” which is translated as “Disease/illness and nature of the death”. The disease is scarlatina (scarlet fever) and the nature of the death is found in what appears as “cur”, which is an abbreviation rather than a complete word. The abbreviation is for the word curatio with medici understood, which means “under the care of a physician”. If it were written with the proper Latin case endings it would be “curatione medici”. Qualitas mortis basically is used to distinguish a death from natural causes from an accidental death or, very rarely, from murder. Natural causes is frequently expressed as “ordinaria” or “naturalis”.

The parish priest is not to be credited or blamed for what is found in the entries. The priest did not write the entries. Since multiple copies were required the parish pastor hired a scribe to do the busy work of producing multiple copies of the registers.

I hope that the above clarifies matters for you.

Vale,

Dave

P.S. "Bishop's copy" and "the original" are misnomers but that is a topic for another time.

CUR in Latin death record

Xericmaid — Mon Oct 19, 2026 1:14 am

Author: Xericmaid

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2026 1:14 am

In looking at this website: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Latin_Genealogical_Word_List#C

I think the word might just be particular to this priest. "cur" means "why" in Latin.

Cause of death query (cor?)

lenahlene — Wed Aug 19, 2026 10:59 am

Author: lenahlene

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2026 10:59 am

I’ve come across a little batch of records which seem to have ‘Cor’ as part of the cause of death and I have no idea what it means or its relevance, as it appears both in the originals and the bishops copy, and the deaths seem to be mostly children but the causes differ. In some cases, the cause of death in the original is simply given as ‘cor’ but the bishop’s copy adds scarlatina. But this word appears in pretty much every death entry for about 6 months, and then disappears and I haven’t seen it anywhere else in the records. Most of the deaths are ‘cur’ or ‘cur et scarlatina’ but not all, there is one ‘cur et convulsiones’, but where ‘scarletina’ is given as the cause of death elsewhere in the books, it’s not accompanied by ‘cur’

These are from 1875, the scans are on FamilySearch film 2037644, image 181 for the original; and the bishop’s copy is film 4945071 images 677 and 678.

Anna Landkammer d.28th Dec is one of the ones which has ‘scarlatina’ added in the bishop’s copy entry but not in the original.