Genealogy Chat

I was told recently by somebody who viewed my tree on here that I had a lot of living rellies that should have died decades ago...... So I thought I would set about 'killing' them off. Not as easy as finding their births.

I always find killing them off hard too. If they were alive in 1901 then unfortunately its just a case of trawling the indexes from the year say they would have been 80 backwards. Hard work but you do find them eventually. Good luck Jacqui

I found it quite useful going through Street Directories to identify the last year they appeared in them. It narrows down the search so you have some idea when to start trawling through the death registers.

well I started from the ones I knew were in 1901 and was working my way forward through the indexes. Trouble is with a surname like Smith I was doing well for the first few years as they put the middle names as well but then I think around 1910 they just put the middle initial so you can not identify them for definate. Also the more recent ones they now put their actual birthdate. Not sure which year that starts. What and where do you get street directories from?

Be thankful you have middle names...I have a whole lot still alive because they are Smiths with common first names and no middle names....somehow I followed them all seperately from Devon to Yorkshire in the 1870's (7 of 8 brothers), but killing them seems to be a little harder!

managed to kill of one definate Smith. Luckily I am able to cross reference with medwaycity ark site

Re street directory - the majority of these in Bristol are in the central library but the records office have a few. It might be worth phoning to check this out for your area.

Don't forget that you may not find death entries for many of these people, unless you check the registers for Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. - hundreds of thousands of people emigrated in the course of the 20th century.

I've been busy killing a few of mine off too:-) I've found going through the local newspapers has paid dividends. I started with the death of one I was sure of and that gave me the clue that as he was a widowerand I should be looking for his wifes death in the preceeding years - a bit laborious, but as I've quite a few relatives in the same area I can across a couple that I wasn't expecting so they were a bonus:-) I've also worked by using gravestones - as they can often give clues to the deaths of other family members:-) Bacardi XX

Ancestry have started to match birth and death dates, under Death Records.

I searched the local cemetery records to find some of mine, managed to find several members of the same family in one grave, but have had great difficulty with some. I tried searching free bmd but came up with a possible 20 dates for one name!!! Karen

Just been to Bolton central library looked through electorial rolls to find my great grandma's death funnily she was listed in 1961 but not 1962 so i presumed she died in 1962 looked through bmds she died 4th q 1960!

oh my so did somebody vote on her behalf in 1961 then lol Not doing very well with mine at all. Major problem is I dont live in the same county as where I was born and most of my rellies came from so dont have access to anything local. There are a few monumental inscriptions on line but have not been of much use.