Genealogy Chat

When I got the death certificate for my gr gr grandfather, the person in attendance was listed as his granddaughter, Rose Ann. I hadn't come across her name in my research, so traced her birth, sent for her cert, and guess what - she was an older sister of my grandad!! Don't know why she was not on any of the census, but her parents are definately my gr grandparents ! Cath.

Got to go with you all, I have many Wards to unravel and I sent for a death cert for a sibling of my gggreatgrandfather and managed to pin point another sister who was present at the death. With the death being 1842 it confirmed her father's name who was already dead and named her sister and where she lived which led me to a new branch of the family and restored Leicester and Newark links plus I had the sister's married name and once I found her marriage in the parish records found her father was the witness, so it confirmed all I had pencilled in. Elaine

This ratios thing can turn up some unexpected results. My paternal grandparents had 13 children but only nine grandchildren. My maternal great-grandparents had four children, but only one great-grandchild - ME!! lol Merry

Really Lynn that does surprise me l suppose I imagined they would get married mainly to have someone to support them.

I agree, Merry. I think I like death certs best of all now. When I started, all the excitement was in the birth and marriage certs, because I knew I would be getting new information. But now the birth and marriage certs are almost always confirmation of existing info (occasional thrill with a witness of a marriage admittedly), but death certs throw up all sorts of unexpected pleasures - all the more appreciated because I never expect them to. Tina

Val, its not that uncommon for more than one sister not to marry, my mum had 3 aunts who never married and a 4th married late in life. The 2 that did marry only had 1 child each, whilst the brother had 3, so out of & children, there were only 5 grandchildren, a very poor ratio! Lynn

I agree about death certs......I have rarely had a surprise with a marriage or birth cert as they always just seem to confirm what I already knew, or just confirm which was correct out of two possibles, or whatever.........But death certs are quite a different matter...... Apart from never being able to guess the cause of death, the informants often seem to be a family member, but not an immediate one.....maybe the close family member is too upset to go the the reg office and the more distant person can't wait to escape, so they offer to go instead?! My record is a sister-in-law registering a death and giving her address, which led me to be able to add another 100+ people to me tree, because without this info I would never have known of their existance, because the family had a commonplace surname. Merry

good for you following it through. I have found quite a bit out from certs I was looking for a couple of Sisters marriages but could not find any then noticed they had been witnesses at their Brothers Wedding and later on Death Certs still using their single names they never did marry, which I thought was unusual in itself for 2 Sisters not to marry I often wonder why, maybe they were too ugly to get a Man !!! or too rich to need one !!!!.

I was a bit surprised as I thought Jane Elizabeth's married name was Carlier. Checked records, yes it was. Could Casbard be a really bad record of Carlier?? No. Jane's first husband Abraham died in 1874 and Jane Elizabeth married Chas. Casbard a year later - found them on the census.

Another cert I got today, death of husband's ggg grandmother Priscilla Robins. Informant was her daughter Jane Elizabeth Casbard.