Historical cause of death 1700s-1800s
What did ship fever mean on a death certificate?
On a death record, ship fever meant typhus, the louse-borne fever that bred in crowded holds, jails, and camps. In modern terms it usually pointed to epidemic typhus. The 1847 Irish emigration made it infamous: quarantine stations like Grosse Ile kept burial registers full of ship fever entries. Expect it on records mostly 1700s-1800s.
Also written on records as: jail fever, gaol fever, camp fever, putrid fever.
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Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
What is ship fever called today?+
Epidemic typhus, broadly speaking. Doctors of the period diagnosed without laboratory tests, so one label often covered several conditions we would now separate. This page explains historical record language and is not medical advice.
How was ship fever written on death records?+
Clerks and doctors also wrote jail fever, gaol fever, camp fever, and putrid fever. Spelling wandered from register to register, so check every variant before you decide a record is missing or wrong.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
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