Genealogy Chat

Just wondering, have read query about birth reg, was there any penalty for not registering a death? I assume there would be a burial record somewhere but is it possible that there would be no corresponding 'official' registration 1870s?

Can anyone point me to any info please ( I've had a google but thought someone might have a quick answer).

Thankyou :-D

Not sure about penalties as such, but I don't think they could hold a funeral without the death being registered? After 1837 in England & Wales, anyway.
Jan

To have a burial you need a body,if there wasnt then no registration can take place.

People that were lost sea or not recovered from a mining accident for instance I imagine from that time 1870s wont have a registration of death.

Thankyou Jan and Kay :-)

Rose,The indexes are nothing to go by as when they were put on to fiche from the large ledgers at Somerset House entries were missed off especially where a list of Ann Smiths went into very many. (boggle eyed come to mind),,,,,but are in the GRO offical ones at Southport and the local register office,,,,,just missed off in transcribing.

There are thousand and thousands of deaths like this

Deaths Mar 1860 (>99%)
Unknown Albert Stepney 1c 400 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Alexander Salford 8d 40 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Pocklington 9d 56 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Hayfield 7b 422 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Shardlow 7b 241 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male W Bromwich 6b 480 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Ormskirk 8b 421 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male W Derby 8b 324 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Newport Sh 6a 581 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male W Derby 8b 327 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male W Derby 8b 241 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Plymouth 5b 199 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Exeter 5b 83 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Bideford 5b 407 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Stoke D 5b 268 Scan available - click to view
Unknown Male Salford 8d 3

The parish registers have many instances of burials of "stranger found dead" and the like. Are such deaths registered and do they appear in the index?

Kay - It's true you can't have a burial without a body, but:

CWGC say:
The Commission cares for the graves and memorials of almost 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two world wars....The names of almost 760,000 people can be found on memorials to the missing.

Now I don't know abt WW1, but abt 80% of WW1 deaths were of UK residents, rather than elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
If this ratio held in WW2, there are over half a million UK deaths with no known body - they all have d.certs in the war deaths registers at the GRO (or else GROS/GROI/GRONI.)

So you can have a d.cert without a body.

In the case of mining accidents with unrecovered bodies, it needs a coroner's authority to get the death registered.

Rose - see:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1874Act.htm

The act took effect 1/1/1875 (Sect 50).
The 2GBP penalty for failing to rego births & deaths is detailed in Sect 39.

mgnv,that is right for WW1,but its only in recent times that a certificate was started to be issued......and War casualties are another matter from a single cilvil death.and WW1 and WW2 there is no formal registration in the GRO indexes.


in my home place a house took a direct hit of a family of 5 in WW2,its mentioned in the local paper,but only 3 of the deaths were registered,

There are names of fishermen on memorials but no death is registered even in 1900.

1870,would have been a different ball game.

Edit,,,A still birth wasnt registered,but were buried and only in the past few years is a certificate issued and the death can be registred.

KenSE

I posted a snippet of the indexes where they didn't know who they were.

If you look at later indexes where they give the age, many are rounded up or down... Many babies on there as well :-(

I have a couple in my tree who dissappear off the face of the earth after they marry leaving her parents to bring their child up.... I do wonder if they are bodies found somewhere and not identified

Thankyou very much ladies and gentlemen, that's all very helpful.

I had never thought of looking for "unknown" in the deaths index ( why I don't know!) I'm still fixated on finding Harriett lol and my best guess is that she died between 1871 and 1881. There is one possible death in the right area, but has no age given unfortunately.

My OH father born in 1901 to an unmarried mum was put into a children's home from aged 5 ish when she broke up with his father . Dad never lived with his family again and indeed wasn't known about according to descendents of his mums sibling familes
She went on to have liaisons but never married

Have been in touch with one family member whose mum at that time was still alive ,she was born in the 1920,s was surprised to know about dad ,she knew of his two elder sisters born to the same married man !!!

She was able to say that his mum died c1931 in Birmingham hospital and she remembered her visiting them at home with a man , still not able to get a death cert cos she must have been living with him and known by his name ,could have a knocked some years off her age too as she was born in 1872

Her death must be there but who is she is the dilemma ,not worth buying umpteen possible certs as how would you know which is right anyway

My paternal grandfather was lost at sea on route from Melbourne to Bremen. I have the ships log of June 1911 describing grandfather being washed overboard in bad weather

I have a death cert for him that was complied from the info from the ships log . No body but at least gran had some closure ,and indeed to go on to remarry in 1914

Kay - d.certs for war deaths were first issued for the Boer War. They are indexed, but not in the main series of BMD indexes that Ancestry have transcribed, and FreeBMD are transcribing (FMP has transcribed WW1 deaths at the least).

In fact, the GRO has a whole bunch of death registers indexed that Ancestry hasn't transcribed - Aircraft deaths, deaths on hovercraft, deaths on oil rigs, regimental deaths pre American Revolution, Ionian occupation deaths 1818-1864, etc., etc.

There were a bunch of sections concerning deaths at sea in the Act I posted.

My 2x gt grandmother was buried before her death was registered.

She was buried on 24/9/1878, 5 days after she died however her death was not registered until the following quarter. I don't know if it made a difference that an inquest had been held.

It took me quite a while to find her as she died in Birmingham district, miles from her Derby home. I was only able to confirm it was her by viewing the burial records and finding her buried along side her husband and 2 babies.

Chris