Genealogy Chat

If I have my rellies names and their children and parents etc, what is to be gained, by requesting their death certificate? I have some birth and marriage certificates, would I learn anything more from their death certificates? Lynda

Hi Lynda...I got a death cert from someone born in 1801 - died in 1885 and I found out he had a stepson. He had registered the death...so I knew the mans wife had been married before and that what I thought was a maiden name was in fact her married name to her first husband. I then looked up that marriage and found out her maiden name. I usually try and get all certs for direct rellies only...so if you've no mysteries I don't suppose it'll be worth it...but you never know! regards Cynthia

Thanks for your reply Will follow your suggestion Lynda

It is certainly worth 'killing off' your relatives, as Cynthia suggests, at least for your direct lines. If you don't then you risk going down blind alleys. For example, your research hinges on a Census entry in 1881 showing J Blogs as head of the family. You then think you have found your J Blogs who you have in the 1861 Census rejunvenated at the age of 50 and remarried. However, a death certificate shows that the 1861 JB died in 1865 and there is no connection. There was an article on this in FTM a while ago.

Always worth going for it. I have found all kinds of 'leads' from the 'informant' of a death. Rgds, Jeanne

the first half dozen or so that I got were so boring (no new info, except the actual cause of death, which was nothing remarkable) I decided to concentrate on birth & marriages. The surnames I was researching were unusual enough that just seeing the entry in the BMD index was sufficient. But when I started going sideways looking at siblings I hit a few ''fences'' (can't really call them brick walls LOL) & getting the death certs - and wills too - was extremely helpful. In one case the son-in-law registered the death so I found out his name - sending for that cert was a bit of a long shot as she died 200 miles away from home. I wasn't even sure the cert was for the right person till it came & I could spend half an hour on Ancestry checking the details. Dad's Will was the key, as there was a bequest to his widow - at age 86, the only indication I had that she was still alive - and his daughter Ellen, who had been baptised as Eleanor & moved away to go into service before she was 20. And if there was an inquest the cert will say so - and that's another fascinating line to go down!

I discovered in the 1861 census that my great-grandfather had an older brother and older sister that we knew nothing about. I found their deaths in the BMD indexes for 1863 - both deaths registered in the same quarter. They would have been 8 and 11 years old at the time, so I don't know if it was disease or an accident that caused their deaths. The family had just moved from London to Newton Abbot in Devon the year before - it must have been heartbreaking for their parents. I've ordered the certs and am just waiting for them to arrive. I don't know if this has any bearing on the original question, other than perhaps death certs may be able to shed some light otherwise unaswerable questions. Tim

Thanks to you all for your advice. It does seem to be a worthwhile project, so I will have a go and see what info I get from it. I was thinking that it could help with some that were married before 1837 so it would be the only certificate I can get for them. Thanks again Lynda

Lynda The thing about certs is you never know what is on them, until you see them! I've found useful leads on female relatives who appear on their parents's death certs with their married name. When the maiden name is v. common its impossible to know which Sarah Moore amongst all of the ones that married in the 1860s is yours, so its a good lead. Sometimes an address on a death cert leads on to further info. I found my Norfolk grandfather's youngest son that way.

I'm fairly new to this, the tips threads are great, I've picked up a lot of hints. Question: I can see the sense in killing off your relatives, but if say, they are on the 1881 census and not the 1891 or at least you can't find them (I was begining to think a whole large family had died during one decade - then discovered they'd changed from CAMPs to KEMPs) and it's a fairly common name, is there any way of narrowing down the number of certificates yoou would have to order, if NBI doesn't help??? Thanks, 'cos I'm sure I'll get some more good tips.

Mavis, Ways to ensure you hi the right cert first time! Firstly, as you say there can be a problem where a whole family seem to vanish......check following census not just for the person who is the head of house (who might now be dec'd), but look for the youngest children from the prev census and the wife/widow. If the children have been disbursed, then maybe both parents have died, or maybe the wife has died and the husband cannot look after the chilldren. On the following census if the youngest child is aged 5 then it's usual to imagine the parents were both alive at the conception of this child (lol) so in theory the mother (at least) can't have died before the last child was born (I do have a husband apparently responsible for a baby after he had been dead 17 years, but that IS unusual!!!! Obviously, if you are looking for the death of a John Smith in a heavily populated area and esp before 1866 when the age at death appeared in the index you may decide this isn't the certificate to persue! Another thing.....if both parties of a couple seem to have died, try for the wife's cert first.....the wife's cert should tell you whether she was a widow or a wife of X, telling you which way to go for the death of her husband. There are loads of other ways to try and narrow the results.....these are just a few! Good Luck Merry

Thanks for that, must admit it's easier once the age at death is listed. Can't remember at the moment which elusive death it was I gave up on, but unfortunately for me, perhaps not for him, he lived to a ripe old age, was widowed at least twenty years before and moved from one offspring to another, until I lost him.

The death could result in an inquest. In these cases the informant is the coroner, not a family member etc. If there is an inquest then there is often a local newspaper report on it. These newspaper articles can be a mine of information. John

Death certificates are also useful if you are researching your Genetics, as this will often indicate any hereditary problems and which line they come from. There is an article on this in July's Practical Family History mag.

Another useful thing to be gained from Death certs is an address. A routine death certificate showed that my rellie lived at an address given on a marriage cert - I had never been able to tie these two people together satisfactorily before, but knew I had the right people by the address. Incidentally, when dealing with very early Death certs, don't read too much into the cause of death - it was often a guess, and not always by a Doctor either! Remember that medical knowledge was fairly primitive up to, and beyond, 1900 or so. OC