>> GENEALOG File: menthosp >> >> From cpu.us.dynix.com!rrs Mon Jul 19 17:20:06 1993 >> From: Roger Scanland >> Subject: Locating Information on Mental Hospital Patients LOCATING INFORMATION ON MENTAL HOSPITAL PATIENTS Mental hospital records are an often-overlooked source of genealogical information. The primary value of these records for most genealogists will probably be to determine the date and place of death and place of burial of persons died in mental hospitals, and for whom death certificates do not exist. However, these records also provide other information that may be of help, as we will explain. ----- There are several ways of determining whether a family member is likely to be listed in mental hospital records. A family member may tell you that a given individual was institutionalized. The will of the father, mother or spouse may indicate this. You may find a court record that says so. In searching the Soundex indexes to the U.S. census you may find a family member listed on a separate card from other members of the family, with his residence listed as an asylum or mental hospital. Often when a family member had a mental illness or deficiency, you may not know whether or not the person was ever hospitalized. For instance, you may find a census record for a family where the enumerator has included the notation "insane" or some comparable term in reference to a member of a family (in many censuses there is a column that is reserved for such notes). Or a will or court record may indicate such a problem without stating that the person was sent to an institution. If you are not certain that the person was institutionalized, try to determine this before asking for a search of mental hospital records. Many people with mental deficiencies or problems were taken care of at home and were never sent to an institution. If you have determined or have good reason to believe that a person was institutionalized, the guidelines below should help in locating mental hospital records for the person. 1. If the person died after death records began to be kept in the locality where the person died, it is advisable to obtain a copy of the person's death certificate before requesting research in medical hospital records. One reason is that the death certificate may tell you all you need to know. Another is to minimize the amount of research the mental hospital's Medical Records staff will need to do for you. Obtaining a death certificate for a mental hospital patient may require more effort than you would usually need to make since the family may have no information on the person once he or she was institutionalized, particularly if the person died years ago. In these cases it is necessary to check indexes to death records. These indexes are available in the county or city office that houses that area's death records. In addition, copies of death certificates are also kept by each state's vital statistics department or health department. The state's death records sometimes have indexes that are easier or more effective to search than the indexes that are kept in city or county offices. 2. Once you are ready to search the hospital records, make sure you have the correct hospital. Some states have more than one "State Hospital." A local library or the state Mental Health Department can give addresses. If the hospital was a private institution rather than a state institution, the state Mental Health Department, the State Archives, or a university library in the state may be able to help you locate it, or to indicate where its records might be located. 3. There is a good chance that the name of the institution will have changed through the years as terms such as "insane asylum" were replaced by more humane terminology. 4. Records of private institutions may no longer exist. When they do exist, the degree of success you will have in obtaining information on a family member may vary. 5. Records of either type of institution may be incomplete or nonexistent for the time period you need. The records may have been computerized, in which case only an abstract may have been made of the older records. If the records have been computerized, the original records may or may not still exist. If they still exist, they may still be at the hospital or may have been transferred to the State Department of Health or to the State Archives. 6. A typical record kept for a person who was a patient in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century might contain the following information: a. Patient's name b. Medical diagnosis This is often a very brief term such as Acute Mania or simply Mania. For those interested, a definition of this term and its use through the years is given at the end of this discussion. c. Date that the patient was admitted to the hospital d. State or country of birth e. Name and address of next-of-kin or other family members who corresponded with the hospital regarding the patient f. Date of correspondence (there may be only one or two instances of correspondence in some cases) g. Patient's date of death and cause of death h. Place of burial. Most or all state mental hospitals have their own cemeteries. However, in many cases the body was sent to the next-of-kin for burial. 7. For information on a specific patient, write to the Medical Records Department at the hospital's address. 8. The following things are typically required of persons who are requesting information on mental hospital patients: a. The request must be made in writing. b. It must be made by the person requesting the information. Presumably, if the person needing the information were unable to write, the hospital would accept a letter from someone representing the requestor. c. The request must include enough information on the patient to enable the hospital to identify the patient in their records. As a minimum, you should provide at least the person's name and the approximate time period the person was a patient. d. You must state the relationship of the requestor to the patient. e. You must explain why the information is being requested. 9. If the patient died at the hospital, and had living next-of-kin, that person was probably responsible for the burial. Many mental hospital patients are buried wherever the next-of-kin directed, which was often where the next-of-kin lived. In other cases the patient would be buried at a cemetery used by the mental hospital. There may or may not be a cemetery record book covering the proper time period. If one exists, it should probably be searched, in case it contains information that is not in the records of the hospital itself (the hospital and the cemetery could have different policies on access to records, or some hospital records could have been lost). Many patients buried in state hospital cemeteries may not have gravestones. The cemetery may not be open except by appointment. When this is the case, the hospital's Medical Records office can tell you who to contact for an appointment. This will typically be someone in the hospital's Maintenance Department. In cases where the hospital had its own cemetery, the Medical Records Dept. may be responsible for giving information from the cemetery record book, or the cemetery maintenance staff may have that responsibility, so you may need to check with both. If the patient has a gravestone, the cemetery maintenance staff should be able to send you a copy of the inscription. 10. Since many mental hospital patients stayed there many years or until they died, the hospital records might contain helpful information on other family members. For instance, the next-of-kin for a younger person would be the father or mother, and their address might be in the records. If the next-of-kin changed from the father to the mother on a given date, that would suggest that the father had died. When it changes from the parents to a brother or sister, that suggests that both parents had died or at least had become incapable of handling their affairs. If the patient died and the body was shipped elsewhere for burial, that would also indicate the address of the next of kin. 11. Court and probate records are often a good source of information on persons with mental disorders, and their families. If you find a will or other probate record that indicates that a family member was mentally incompetent, or if you learn of it from some other source, check the county probate and court records in the locality where the person's parents and/or spouse lived. Court records often go into considerable detail in cases like this, sometimes giving considerable genealogical information on other family members as well. It depends on the individual situation. *************************************************************** A DEFINITION OF "MANIA" OR "ACUTE MANIA" This term is a synonym for bipolar affective disorder, also known as manic-depression. It is a mood disorder, probably with a strong biological component, which causes one to experience strong and sometimes rapid mood swings alternating between states of extreme depression and states of manic, excitable, hyperactive, grandiose, or irritable feelings, any of which may last for minutes, hours or days, depending on the severity of the illness. As of 1993 this is not curable, but it is treatable, usually with a salt of lithium. Before the 1960s there was not a clear distinction between what is now known as bipolar affective disorder (Freud's manic-depressive psychosis) and what is currently known as schizophrenia (not to be confused with Multiple Personality Disorder). Schizophrenia is a progressive degenerative disease which also has a strong biological component in most cases. It is only somewhat responsive to the anti-psychotic medications now available, and usually ends in complete dementia. (the information in this and the previous paragraph is quoted with slight alterations from an INTERNET message from Timothy McCajor Hall [hall3@husc.harvard.edu] to Roger Scanland [rrs@cpu.us.dynix.com], Thu, 15 July 93 20:02:13 -0400, Subject: Acute Mania)