Читать книгу Collins Tracing Your Family History - Ryan Tubridy, Anthony Adolph - Страница 81

THE DEATH CERTIFICATE of Julia Little is reasonably typical in the sort of information it contains. She died on 17 May 1876 at 17 Stockdale Street, in the sub-district of Howard Street and registration district of Liverpool. She was a female, aged 32, wife of Thomas Little, a shoemaker, and died of:

‘excessive drinking, 12 months, certificate received from Clarke Aspinall, coroner for Liverpool, Inquest held 20th and 29th May 1876.’

Death certificates record the following:

Name

Date and place of death. This will usually be the deceased’s house. However, hospitals were usually recorded simply by their postal address too.

Cause of death. As you work back into the past, you will find these becoming less informative. Many old people died in the 19th century of ‘decay of nature’. For modern equivalents of old causes of death see www.rmhh.co.uk/medical.html.

Age. From June 1969, the date of birth is given.

Occupation. Married women and widows were sometimes described as ‘wife’ or ‘widow’ of their husband. Death certificates do not provide parents’ names, except in the cases of young children, for whom the ‘occupation’ box was often used to name the child’s father. Very occasionally I have come across older people being described in terms of who their father was, such as the death of Robert Hugill, which took place on 2 March 1842 at Stockton in Co. Durham. Although he was 42, he was described as ‘son of Jonathan Hugill, corn miller’. Not only was this a fascinating find in its own right but, because Robert was born long before General Registration began, this co-ordinate on his origins was especially useful.

Name, address and signature or mark of the informant. The informant was often a child of the deceased or other close relative, so this section is very useful if you are trying to find the deceased’s living descendants. However, informants were sometimes doctors, especially after 1874, when a doctor’s certificate was required before a death certificate could be issued.

Death certificate of Rev. Patrick Henry Kilduff, 1917.

Detail from a Catholic memorial card (see here)