Genealogy Chat

Thank you for the replies everyone. I will have a look into the place of death to see if this can shed any light. Mental illness does run in family though, so it's possible my great grandad was as they said 'inane'.

I've still got a box of unused floppy disks that are certified. It seems clear to me that what the word is meant to convey depends on the context. In the context of a death certificate, a certified cause of death is one which a doctor has signed as the true c.o.d..

As you can see from my other post, the "certified by..." on a death cert simply indicates that their doctor had issued a certificate as to date/cause of death etc usually given to next of kin (I have a few of these - they are not the death certificate itself) - but he could only do this if he had seen the patient during the previous 2 weeks, had previously treated them for the illness or had been the one to attend at the time of death.

It doesn't mean the person was insane or had mental health problems.

2008
My daughter
I don't feel well enough to work.
Employer
Well you can self certificate for a week but after that you will have to be certified by a doctor.

I have a death certificate for my uncle which says his death was certified by an attending doctor (who signed the death certificate) but I also have two deaths relating to a set of twins who died from consumption in 1852 - both were babies - but on their death certificates it states "No medical attendance".

I imagine that either their parents couldn't afford a doctor or that they had seen a doctor but, due to the nature of the illness, it possibly wasn't easy to predict how long they would live.

I have a number of D.Certs that say Certified.
Now either I come from a long line of insane people [that would explain a lot;-)] or it means the cause of death was certified as correct by a doctor.

Some more info on it for you:

"By 1875 the cause of death is followed by "Certified by..........(name of doctor) ..........(doctors qualifications)" in which case the doctor in attendance on the deceased in his last illness has signed a medical certificate of cause of death. This tends then to be in medical jargon eg myocardial infarction (a layman would have said heart attack) or cerebrovascular accident (stroke).

A doctor is only qualified to sign if he has been in attendance on the deceased in his last illness AND has either seen the deceased within 14 days of his death or saw the deceased after death. If there is no doctor who qualifies under these restrictions then the death must be notified to the coroner."

Extracted from this webpage -

http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/deaths.htm

Regards - Athena

The term 'certified' on old registrations simply means that a doctor certified the death. Doctors names were not always added in earlier registrations. It has nothing to do with mental health / illness

Hi Christine,

It means the cause of death was verified by a doctor.

Janice

i think certified just means that a Dr signed the death cert, in other words they were happy to sign the death cert without a postmortem

the usually term used for mental illness that i think you are thinking of is sectioned

I posted yesterday regarding my great x3 granddad whose death certificate says he died of 'disease of the brain' but it also said under that the word 'certified'. A lady suggested it was probably meningitis, but does the 'certified' bit mean anything? Is it something to do with mental health?

Regards,
Keeley.