Genealogy Chat

Can anyone help with information about the process of burial & death registration, or point to resources that cover this. I am trying to establish what the processes are now in England, and how they have changed. I have several cases where deaths are registered quite some time after date of death with burial some where in between. My presumption is that a death can't be registered until cause of death is determined, but permission for burial can be given prior to registration in some cases e.g. where an inquest is held but the body of the deceased does not need to be retained as part of that process. Is this the case & does anyone have any more detail on this?
Julie

why don't you have a look on

www.direct.gov.uk and go to the Registering a Death section

thanks, I did look at something similar on my local authority website, but I was looking for a bit more detail & some info on past procedures - which I guess will have changed over the years.

That does sound strange Joan...has he got a head stone with his date of death on?

Hi Amokavid

If you want to find out exactly when your step father died you could contact the funeral palour (if you don't know which one try all the ones in the area) after all if he was buried/cremated in 1963 then it is unlikely he died in 1964!!.

In my cases I think the dates of death may well be correct, inquests were involved, but I don't know why these took place several months later - unless the coroners' were backed up with cases there were no apparent reasons for delays of months. I hadn't thought about the issue of deaths registered some time after actual death until I received these death certificates, let alone deaths with wrong dates recorded. I am now perplexed that you can't take a death date as being in a particular window from the death registration entry. It also explains why I've had cases where relatives have said they were sure someone died earlier than the death regn info I've picked up.
Julie

In Scotland, details of the registration process differ from the rest of the UK. In particular, alterations to BMD.certs are typically noted in a special RCE (Register of Corrected Entries)
They illustrate this on one of their examples pages:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/Content/Help/index.aspx?r=554&404

The following is an example of an RCE relating to an accidental death, in this case a victim of the Tay Rail Bridge disaster, December 1879:
Death entry showing RCE reference in left margin Please note the entry for the death of one of the guards on the train also appears on this page.
RCE

The initial date of death was given as 17/2/1880 - the day the body was found. The Procurator Fiscal (Scottish coronor) has ordered the date of death changed to 28/12/1879, when the train went off the bridge. The change was ordered 22/7/1880 and made 19/8/1880.

Trying to think what happened when my father died (in England) as you want the more usual procedures. He died in a Nursing Home within the last 10 years.

The GP attended within a few hours. I collected a sealed envelope from the surgery the following day. The Staff at the home had previously asked if father was to be cremated or buried as there were different forms the GP had to fill in.

As soon as I'd heard that father had died, I made an appointment to Register his death, which as it happens was 2 days after he died. Over the Christmas period, it can be as long as 2 weeks before you can get an appointment! The Registrar issued a proper DC in exchange for the GP's sealed (cause of death) envelope. I was also given another form to hand to the Funeral Directors giving them the go-ahead to make arrangments for the dispose of the body.

My mother had died a few years earlier in hospital. We weren't able to collect her cause of death certificate for about 3 days. This is fairly standard in hospitals, presumably in case they need to do a P.M.

What the procedure was in time gone past, you need some one older than me ;-)

Inquests can take place many months after the death occured, especially if they have to gather evidence.
My daughter observed one recently where the person had committed suicide FIVE years ago while in Prison Custody!
Medical DC's are usually issued when there is a clear cause of death, and the body is released for 'burial'. It's in exceptional circumstances for this to be delayed.

Julie
I have just looked up details of a well-reported death, which happened in the last 10 years.
It occured in a particular month, funeral was the following month, but death registration was a further 15 months later.
This was due to inquest and gathering evidence.

I know that a friend's family too had a family member's funeral some time before death registration happened.
Once the Coroner is satified that he or she has all the evidence needed from the body, a permission for burial may be granted to the family, although it is often still quite a while before the inquest is held.

Gwyn

My mother died in hospital in 1980. I collected the certificate of death the following morning, and followed the same procedure as Det. above. The only difference was that I didn't need an appointment to see the Registrar. As the hospital, Registrar and Funeral Directors were all within walking distance of each other, everything was sorted by lunchtime.

My father died in 1967, but I wasn't involved in the procedure. I do know that, as he died at the weekend, nothing official could be done until Monday morning. The death certificate does have the correct date on it, though.

...."My presumption is that a death can't be registered until cause of death is determined, but permission for burial can be given prior to registration in some cases e.g. where an inquest is held but the body of the deceased does not need to be retained as part of that process....."

is also borne out by the situation with my own father. The coroner gave permission for his cremation to be held within days once the post-mortem examination had been held, but the death was only registered some months later, after the inquest had been held.