Genealogy Chat

.

My Gt Gt Grandfather is listed on my Gt Grandmothers wedding cert in 1899 as a Mariner. On the 1871 census he is at home but listed as a Seaman, he is not on any other census, but I presume he is at sea. He was alive in 1891, and also in 1899 at his daughters wedding (at least he is not listed as deceased). However, in 1901, his wife is listed as a Widow. I haven’t looked thoroughly yet, just Freebmd, but I can’t find his death from 1891 onwards. My question is this… if he died at sea, and was presumably buried at sea, how do they record the death at a later date? Do they have to obtain a death certificate? I don’t know the type of vessel, so he could have been on a fishing boat, Merchant Navy or Royal Navy. If he did die at sea, would he necessarily have been buried at sea? Thanks, Brenda

If he died at sea, his death should be listed in the overseas section on 1837online Lou

Hi if he did die overseas, then unless you know where its like searching for a needle in a haystack, my gt uncle died on a boat in 1950s and can i find him no, LOL. as it depends where, LOL. good luck. I have put some bmd overseas leftovers on a site, its free to register,free to view,add, there is a search menu so yu dont have to keep looking through each one. Good luck. :-) remove brackets from link. http://www(.)tracingyourfamilyhistory(.)com/bmd/index.php

Hi My Grandfather was lost at sea in 1911. There is a section at the London records Office Middleton Street which lists Overseas events & I searched there using his name & came up with a ref from which I got a death cert calleda Certified Copy of an Entry in the Marine Registers. It named the vessel he was on & from that I was lucky & managed to find the original Ships Log for the Voyage with the Masters entry of the event At Kew Not a lot of Merchant vessel records are kept & some have been sent to Newfoundland for Archiving as they were destined to be binned & after many protests The canadian Archives agreed to take some . In order to find records you do need the name & Official number of the vessel. I was lucky as I expect the one I needed was an unusual event so it was kept. I.m off to the London records in April so if you give me the name of your grt grt grandfather and approx dates I will look to see if anything there shirley

Hello Shirley, Thanks for your kind offer. I have located his death certificate so I may not need to trouble you. Here are the details... His name was Malcolm Bewick and he was born in Sunderland in 1844. I found him on the 1891 census on the SS Pione, listed as a Steward. His death was recorded in Dartford, Kent during the Jun quarter of 1900, aged 55. I sent for the cert earlier this week, the process date is April 8th. It seems that if he did die at sea, they were clsoe enough to land to have him registered in Dartford; or, he was on shore leave and met with some sort of an accident, or maybe had a heart attack or some such. I just hope the death cert has some useful info on it! If you had time, you could check to see if he did die at sea or not, or what vessel he might have been on. Thanks again for your kind offer. Regards, Brenda

1836 Registation Act 'And be it enacted, That if any of His Majesty's English Subjects shall die at Sea on board of a British Vessel, the Captain or Commanding Officer of the Vessel on board of which such Death shall have happened shall forthwith make a Minute of the several Particulars herein-before required to be inserted in the Register touching such Death, so far as the same may be known, and the Name of the Vessel wherein the Death took place, and shall, on the Arrival of such Vessel in any port of the United Kingdom, or by any other sooner Opportunity, send a Certificate of the said Minute through the Post Office to the Registrar General, who shall file the same, and enter a Copy thereof under his Hand in the Marine Register Book, and keep the same with the other Registers, according to the Provisions of this Act.' So deaths at sea are registered. Bob

Does anybody know what happens if the captain dies at sea, e.g. if the whole ship goes down with no survivors? My great-grandfather Robert Salter Bristow was a merchant navy captain and his ship the Heron was torpedoed in 1917 and sank with no survivors. He is on the CWGC website but as far as I know there is no death registration on the GRO website, although I have looked and looked! Kate.

Brenda thanks your email reply. have emailed back to you Shirley

Robert Ties exactly with copy from the Marine registers entry I was able to get for my grandad. He was washed overboard in bad weather from a sailing vessel and it was too dangerous for the vessel to turn to attempt rescue. he was throwna lifebelt but they dont know if he reached it!!!!. Imagine seeing the veseel sail off & leaving you there. Can only hope he met a quick end poor man. he was 31 years old Shirley

Kate There is a special series of volumes for WW1 deaths. Your man OUGHT to be in there, but you do hear of some deaths not being recorded. For the more general question, burial registers for coastal towns and villages are full of the burials of unknown men, whose bodies were washed ashore. If nobody survives, there is nobody to record the event. I have several mariners in my family whose deaths do not appear anywhere in the GRO indexes, any of them, and I only know that they did die at sea from the granting of probate or the names of their dependents in Trinity House Petitions (a fund for widows and orphans of mariners).