Hello! I hope you're still checking the message board for responses after all this time. I have found the site below to be very helpful:
https://www.mun.ca/mha/research.phpCoincidentally, I have been trying to find more detail on the death of my great grandfather, Stephen Connors, aboard the SS Coban in 1897. As has been handed down in family stories, he died of a skull fracture that he sustained when falling from the deck to the hold of the ship because the hatch wasn't properly secured. Whether this is true or something the Black Diamond Line chose to share with my great grandmother is a mystery. From what I have learned (and documents I have found), the ship made an unscheduled stop in St. John, NB, where he was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. His body was not taken home to St. John's. Although he was married with a small son (my grandfather), the crew reported him as single, and he was buried as an unknown in the cemetery of a psychiatric hospital.
I contacted the archive at the link above, and they did not have the crew lists for that ship during that time period but were able to give me some helpful details. I'll continue searching, though, to see what more I can learn about the circumstances of his fall.
Good luck in your research!
