Purchased a death certificate for an ancestor of mine dated 1863. Strangest thi

Question:

Purchased a death certificate for an ancestor of mine dated 1863. Strangest thing is!!?

it does not list a cause of death..He was only 48 so when can assume it wasn't from old age..

Any budding genologists have any idea why a cause of death wouldn't be recorded..His wife died during childbirth 3 years earlier, she apparently had twins and the boy died 15 days later..

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Death certificates were not common in 1863 and those that did exist varied widely in the information they asked for. When there was a death certificate, it was more often filled out by a civil clerk based on information from a family member, and not by a physician. If there is a space for cuase of death and it is unfilled, it may be that the family member who reported the death did not know the cause or was not present when the certificate was filled out.
Statistics that show the average lifespan of people in the 1800s are misleading. People who survived childhood lived to be as old as people do today. The lower average lifespan was brought down by the high rate of infant and child mortality. Even in 1863, 48 would be considered a young age to die.