Genealogy Chat

Hi Mandy thanks for that probably my best bet Sally

are you in Swindon? Anyhow, I wrote to Birmingham City Archives when I wanted a copy of coroners report and it came really quickly. Maybe you could do the same with Kent? Mandy

Dear All have hust logged back on thank you all for your suggestions I guess its the long haul to Kent from Wiltshire for me thank you all again Sally

Ian Thank you for that tip. I have a couple of relatives whose deaths prompted an inquest, so I will follow your suggestion. I had a great-great grandfather who held various jobs in the parish, including coroner's officer. nell

I don't agree that coroners reports were all destroyed after 15 years. Some may have been, but I have had several for my family. Contact your coroners officer ( there will be a link on your local police force website) and ask where the old reports are archived. They may be still with the coroners office or they may be in the local records office. They might even be gathering dust in the force archives, although most forces now send their old stuff to the records office. I was a coroners officer for more years than I care to remember :-( Ian

Oh, the newspapers won't have the full coroner's report - they will only have an article if it was deemed news-worthy at the time. Ellie

Hi Sally I looked into this once and was told that Coroner's reports (even now) are only held on file for about 15 years before being destroyed. Plus, nearly everything before the war was destroyed during it, so there's next to no hope of getting a report from 1915. However, I did have some luck in researching the local newspapers at the time and was amazed to find my great-grandmother's death was front page news! If you know what area you're looking for, you'll need to take a trip to the library in the area and get the old newspapers on microfiche. Good luck! Ellie

hi jim many thanks Sally

Hi Sally, these were often published in local papers. Copies could be in local archive centres at libraries or at National newspaper archive at Colindale, North London. The Colindale site can be searched to see what newspapers were published by town - and they give the dates of publication. Jim

I would like to find out about getting hold of a coroners report from 1915 any ideas cheers for all help Sally