The Scott County Historical Society graciously allowed me to post the entirety of the book Scott County Death Records, 1901-1968 when I first started this website back in October, 1996. The names and dates from that book were gathered over the years by Alta Presley of Oneida, TN and the book donated to the society by Clyde Reed. In the book, names are sorted by the first letter of the surname and then date ordered by that surname letter. For example, all surnames beginning with A are presented first and then date ordered within the A's.
Unfortunately, the book contained a number of alphabetical and date ordering errors. It also contains some death date errors that were most likely introduced when transcribing from Alta's original notes to the type written set. I have appended the most likely correct death dates (as derived from other sources like death certificates, obituaries, and funeral home records) in the notes section for those dates in apparent error (as I discover them).
About 112 of the names are listed simply as the wife of a spouse; e.g., Mrs. John McKnight, 1 Sep 1910. In these instances, I attempted to determine the wife's given and maiden names through my own research and the help of many people from the Scott Co, TN mailing list. We were about 90% successful. Where we were able to identify the wife's given and maiden name, I used that name for the database while including the original name as recorded by Alta Presley in the notes section. The remaining names in question are entered in the database as is and will remain such until we determine their given and maiden names.
In preparing the names and dates from the original book for upload into the database, I noticed a number of interesting facts. The book claims to identify deaths between 1901 and 1968 but I found two deaths outside this range. Reason Marcum died 13 Jun 1872 and Joel Chitwood died 29 Aug 1884. There are also references to deaths of famous people who obviously didn't die in Scott County. Ms. Presley notes the deaths of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, Senator Robert Taft in 1953, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962, Alvin C. York in 1964 (the famous WWI hero who died in next door Fentress County), and President Kennedy in 1963.
Title: Scott County Death Records, 1901-1968: kept by Alta Presley, Oneida, Tennessee
Author: edited by Clyde Reed
Publisher: Scott
County Historical Society; Huntsville,
TN
Copyright: 1996
Pages: 26
Abstract:
A simple list containing 1,425 chronologically arranged names and dates
of death as kept by Alta Presley of Oneida, TN. The book is type
written and appears to have been compiled from Alta's notes by Clyde
Reed and donated by him to the Scott County Historical Society.
The earliest date of death is for Reason Marcum who died on 13 Jun
1872. The last date of death is for Jarvis Howard Chitwood
who died 20 Aug 1968. The book does contain some alphabetical and
chronological ordering errors. Unfortunately, it also contains
some death date errors that were most likely introduced when
transcribing from Alta's original notes to the type written set.
There is no index.
This page was created
by Timothy
N. West and is copyrighted by him. All
rights reserved