Is there a concensus regarding deaths at sea?

Question

Is there a concensus on WikiTree regarding Migratory Categorisation and use of accompanying Stickers for people who died during the migration. In the instance on which I am working a young boy of nine months died during an 1868-69 voyage between England and Victoria (Australia). Did he migrate? I have placed Category and Sticker on the profile for now.

Comments

He emigrated. 
That he died before he could be classed as an immigrant doesn't change the fact that he left one place and travelled towards another, therefore was a migrant.

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True, Melanie. Thanks. I was placing migratory emphasis on the arrival (immigration) rather than also recognising the leaving (emigration).

Answer 1

In short, I don't think there is a global answer for this, and there can be no real consensus - the answer would lie in the specific details and circumstances of the person (and family) in question and may still be open to interpretation.

I am not fluent in Australian history, but was Victoria a colony of Britain at the time? If so, some may not consider this to be migration since they were under the same government and the colony was already established. That may be viewed as akin to moving from one US State to another. However, others may see moving to a colony on another continent as migration since there was a complete upheaval of the normal lifestyle and comforts to expand in a new place - whether or not it fell under the management of a singular government.

As for the specific profile in question, there is not much information to go by right now, so I think it will just come down to a judgement call based on the facts available. If you consider the surviving family to have migrated, then the infant son, even though he did not reach the shore alive, would have also been under the same migration umbrella in my opinion. The cause of death may have even been due to the migration - so I it is important to note on the profile as you have done.

Comments

Transportees, especially if they stayed, are considered immigrants to Australia.  This classification of immigrants to Australia (or one of her Colonies) includes all those who arrived pre-1900.
We don't regard it as equivalent of someone moving from, for example, Northumberland to Cheshire, nor from New York to Florida.  Those may be internal migrations, but they are not emigrations.

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Perfect - thanks Melanie! So I stand by comment that:

"If you consider the surviving family to have migrated, then the infant son, even though he did not reach the shore alive, would have also been under the same migration umbrella in my opinion. The cause of death may have even been due to the migration - so I it is important to note on the profile as you have done."

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Thanks, Steven and Melanie. I was thinking along those lines and welcome the extra 'eyes'.

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As additional information for others with the same type of, or similar question:

It also often happened that the births at sea, or deaths at sea, were registered once the ship arrived in Australia.  (Not always, and not all the colonies/States.)
So - an example - young Jo Lastname is born at sea, prior to arrival in Keppel Bay, Queensland.  Jo's birth is registered in Queensland, with the code "M" designating a Marine Birth.
Similarly for a death at sea, said death was then registered at the first port of call in Queensland with the same "M" code.

I'd need to look up what, if any, codes the other States may use.

Edited to add link:

https://www.qld.gov.au/law/births-deaths-marriages-and-divorces/family-history-research/information-and-how-to-access-and-order-records/research-codes

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Interestingly the UK register of deaths at sea records the death of a  Henry R (rather than Reginald Henry) and records his age as 9 not 9 months.

He died on 28 August 1869, of Dysentery.  This  could well be a copying error; the index is in a ledger obviously compiled from details sent from the ship. ( and Reginald Henry was  baptised in 1868)  ) https://www.ancestry.co.uk/sharing/27758059?h=34820a&utm_campaign=bandido-webparts&utm_source=post-share-modal&utm_medium=copy-url

As regards the original question I agree with Melanie. There are vast numbers of people who emigrated from Britain to colonies that we categorise as emigrants from or immigrants to not internal migrations. This includes huge numbers that emigrated prior to the War of Independence. If there is evidence that they  intended to emigrate got on a ship but died at sea,  then they had emigrated. (But they may never have immigrated!) 

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Similar to this, the Québécois project classifies people who migrated from mainland France to New France as migrants. Not an internal migration.

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The Wikitree statement "The migration covered under this scope is often over long distances and includes emigration from one country and immigration to another" is a little bit too restrictive. I think that the single word country should be expanded to include regions that take more than 2 months of sailing time to get from one part of the country to another.

[Edited 25 minutes later:] I propose replacing the word 'country' with 'country or continent' in the Migration Category Structure

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As Isabelle said, migrants from France to New France are indeed classified as Migrants and not as just moving from one province to another.  Same would apply to those leaving England for Australia or other English colonies.  Like the North American colonies which later became the USA.

A child or adult who doesn't reach the other shore due to death at sea would be classified as Emigrant from __, and Died at sea.