Genealogy Chat

Where I can I note the possible year of death from BMD. Is it worth buying certificates? - what useful additional information will I gain?

I find death certificates really interesting.

It is sad to see young children dying of illnesses that are now easily curable, but the cause of death often gives an indication of living conditions at that time.
My great grandfather died of typhoid in Southampton in 1876.
On my mother's side my great great grandmother died of exhaustion after being in labour for 4 days.

....and how about this for extra information in 1876 as a cause of death...

'Fracture of the skull by an iron shutter bolt.
Wilful murder againgst Thomas Isle and others
6 days P.mort


Gwyn

One of my 3x great grandfathers died aged 83 in 1900. Without his death certificate I would never have known that he died of senile decay brought on by the shock of fracturing his femur in an accidental fall. He was an inmate of the workhouse and his previous address was "quite unknown"

death certs have proved extremely useful in my family search!

Christine

I have also found children of the deceased who i previously didn't know of registering deaths.

I have found a living rellie in Scotland from one.

His mother registered her Gran's death in Herefordshire.

I would never have found the Scottish connection without it.

Kind regards
Amanda x

There's an article in todays Daily Mail about family history and possible inherited illnesses. Quite often when we are giving our medical history to doctors and hospitals etc we get asked if certain things, like heart problems, high blood pressure, etc are in our immediate family - but what about before?

So although I dont think Death Certificates can be particularly helpful in our research, unless we strike lucky and learn of an unknown relative, they can be very interesting in other ways. I guess many of us just type in the death date and place into our tree and give little thought as to why or how that person died. And then there are mysteries like one family I have were the father and 3 young children all died within weeks of each other..... why!?!?

Unfortunately I dont feel I can justify the expense of Death Certificates unless I am in desperate need of some clue about my research and my money goes to Birth or Marriage Certificates first as they yield more research information.

My grandmother and her sister were told that their mother died from a fall. When I got my Gr,Grandmother's death certificate it said that she died from Meningitis.

There is another angle to all this which was discussed in an article in "Your Family Tree" a year or so ago.

The article described a number of trees, all researched with the utmost dedication by reference to births, marriages and census records. which turned out to be incorrect, for one simple reason.

One of the ancestors had died, before they could have been linked to the tree and no one had spotted it.

Years of research down the pan as they had gone back through the wrong branch.

The message was to 'kill off' all your ancestors - in the nicest possible way - as this is the only way you can be sure you are going back up the correct line.

My Mum and one of her brothers suffered form Chest problems .bronchitis etc and developing into emphysema. Its surprising how many on their parents side died from chest related illnesses so seems a week chest runs in the family. we have several too in my siblings children who suffer with asthma .

Shirley

Shirley - could where your ancestors lived or worked have contributed to their chest problems? My father's family came from mill towns in Yorkshire, where the air pollution was very bad - as were the working conditions. I have a few miners in my tree too and maybe they had lung diseases.

maryjane .Mine all came from Essex and then East London. The Essex ones were either Ag Labs or Fishermen,,the London ones were labourers of one sort or the other or worked in the London Docks

Shirley - I would have though Ag Labs were the last ones to get chest problems. Strange indeed. I blame my dodgy lungs on the London smog, which I grew up in.... that and my smoking, of course. lol

my 2xgt grandparents died 2 days apart from smallpox. Another relative died of Typhoid fever.
3 have died in work accidents.
1..TB.
1 Convulsions.
1 diptheria age 17
1 mining accident age 18
2 babies teething diarrhorea

I've managed to find several certificates of relatives that lived and died in Utah. While it's sad to think about it, they do provide some very interesting details.

I have a few interesting ones:

Had a car accident and died 13 days later but also suffered endema of the lungs

Cerebral hemmorrhage day he died, had been working the day before as a civil engineer

Cardiac decompression but aortic stenosis for many years

But the worst one was a distant relative who died of a cerebral hemmorrhage but also suffered from Cerebral arteriosclerosis for 20 years, generalised arteriosclerosis for 30 years and diabetes for 37 years.

They all confirmed details which I already had as well.

So I'd recommend getting hold of them where you can!

I would agree with Budgie, death certs. help solve mysteries sometimes.

We have recently bought a copy of the death certificate for OH's grandfather b. 1890 who has been 'missing' since 1930s. His 2 surviving daughters didn't know what happened to him after he left to work in South Africa.
We searched for his death in South Africa and in Scotland, ...but he died in Bristol. The informant was his wife Emily.

I wonder if she knew about 1st wife Margaret living in Aberdeen......?

Gwyn

When my g grandmother's death certificate arrived, the named informant (niece) was completely unknown to me. A bit of searching the BMD registers has not only enabled me to identify her, but work backwards and find where we are connected.

The sad thing is though, none of her descendants appear to be tracing their family history.

Death certificates can also warn of possible geneticc risks. My grandfather died of stomach cancer in 1957 aged 53. I knew his brother died of stomach cancer about 7 months earlier. When I ordered their mothers death certificate I expected to find that she'd died of "womens problems" as her death was never discussed. It turned out she had also died of stomach cancer aged 35. It's certainly put me onalert that there could be a genetic predisposition to stomach cancer.