RootsChat.Com
Census Lookups General Lookups => Census and Resource Discussion => Topic started by: timebandit on Sunday 11 November 12 11:29 GMT (UK)
-
The GRO staff will do a search for an entry if you don't have the GRO index number when applying for a certificate. They will look for the year that you supply and one year either side. So, if I am looking for someone who has died but doesn't appear when I search freeBMD and I also know roughly the year of death, would the GRO staff find him or would they just search the same resource and come up with a blank?
TIA
-
In the first instance you could try giving us the information you have and we'll see what we can do :) :)
Linda
-
More help is always appreciated, Linda :)
I asked about this person before on Rootschat but it didn't lead anywhere unfortunately, but if you can have a look as well I will be very grateful.
It's my great grandfather, Herbert James Harris, that I want to find death & burial details for. He was born in 1864 and this was registered at Plympton St. Mary, Devon. All the census records that I have for him show him living in Tamerton Foliot or staying as a visitor in Cornwall.
He appears on the 1911 census and is described as deceased on his daughters marriage certificate from 1919.
I have so far found no trace or his death or burial. If I can find out where he died maybe I can find his grave...
-
The nearest match would seem to be a James Harris who died aged 50 in Devonport Registration District in Q2 1913. Is there a possibility that he was known as James rather than Herbert and this death was registered by someone who didn't know him very well?
-
While browsing Rootschat I noticed that FindMyPast now have a newspaper archive. Well, I searched the newspaper archive for Herbert Harris and up popped some articles about someone of that name who also happened to be a bootmaker, just like the man I'm looking for.
It seems that in 1905, my great grandfather tried to kill himself, blaming trouble with his wife (who had requested a separation order) and an addiction to drink. However, I know from the census that he was still alive in 1911. I suspect he later either successfully made another suicide attempt or drank himself to death. Either way, maybe his death was reported by someone who didn't know him too well...
behindthefrogs - you may have found the record although I don't know if Herbert was actually known as James.
-
Sometimes people go to stay with their children when their health is failing. Would he have had children in any other parts of the country ? Death certificates are issued in the county where the person died, not where they lived.
-
Sometimes people go to stay with their children when their health is failing. Would he have had children in any other parts of the country ?
If the sick children died would that help? We don't know the names of the children anyway. ;D ;D ;D
-
Herbert had two children, Olive and Ada. Olive stayed in Chacewater in 1911 with a relative called Fanny Phillips. I think this explains why Herbert appears on the 1911 census as a visitor in Cornwall (from memory he was staying at a pub in Blackwater). So he may have spent quite some time in Cornwall but I haven't found a death entry in the records for him there either :-\
Both children lived to old age, Olive dying in Plymouth in 1961 and Ada dying in London in the 70's. Ada only moved to London in the sixties as far as I know.
-
Does anyone know the answer to my original question please?
Since I believe that Herbert James Harris died between 1911 and 1919, I was thinking of applying for a death certificate with one of the middle years specified and guessing that his place of death was Devon (Plymouth if I have to be more specific). The GRO would then do a search and hopefully (if it's just the index that's not been created) someone would find his entry for death and I would have my certificate (though I might have to repeat this process a couple times since the GRO only search one year either side of the year that you supply).
My problem is that I don't know if the GRO really search or just look for the index. If it's the latter then my idea probably won't work.
Anyone?
-
The information is all on the GRO site....
"A 3 year search for the index reference will be carried out."
so they will search the indexes for you, for the information you have given,
but beware the proviso.....
"provided you have sufficient information to identify the entry"
With a fairly common surname like Harris, they have too many false positives.
P.S. Have you discounted the James H Harris registered in Bodmin, Cornwall in Q1 of 1916 ?
-
Have you explored the possibility that he enlisted, and died, during WW1?
-
The nearest match would seem to be a James Harris who died aged 50 in Devonport Registration District in Q2 1913. Is there a possibility that he was known as James rather than Herbert and this death was registered by someone who didn't know him very well?
There is a probate record for this James Harris. He was a naval pensioner who left his money to his wife Margaret.
-
The information is all on the GRO site....
"A 3 year search for the index reference will be carried out."
so they will search the indexes for you, for the information you have given,
but beware the proviso.....
"provided you have sufficient information to identify the entry"
With a fairly common surname like Harris, they have too many false positives.
P.S. Have you discounted the James H Harris registered in Bodmin, Cornwall in Q1 of 1916 ?
So they won't really be very helpful then... :-\
I have looked into the James H Harris that you mention and he seems to appear on the census for that area, so I think that he's a different person, unfortunately.
-
Have you explored the possibility that he enlisted, and died, during WW1?
I have had a look but the Herbert Harris's that I've found have not been my man, as far as I can tell. They've been too young and had different occupations. I could have missed HJH though, as you say there are rather a lot of them :)
He would have been in the region of 50 years old when WW1 was taking place, but they did accept men of that age towards the end of the war didn't they?
-
The nearest match would seem to be a James Harris who died aged 50 in Devonport Registration District in Q2 1913. Is there a possibility that he was known as James rather than Herbert and this death was registered by someone who didn't know him very well?
There is a probate record for this James Harris. He was a naval pensioner who left his money to his wife Margaret.
Thanks Nick. I don't think that this is my man. Have you come across many people who have a death record that seems to be missing? I'm just wondering how common this is.
-
A death has to be legally registered in the UK before a burial can take place. For the majority of people, the reason they can't find a death is because they are looking in the wrong place. I had the same problem when looking for my own grandfather. He lived in the Greenwich/Eltham area of London all his life - he was a master bricklayer in that area, but I didn't have an exact year for his death. After obtaining my fourth (or was it the 5th ?) wrong certificate for him, I'd practically given up, then I made contact with a cousin on my dad's side that I'd not met before, and she told me that my grandfather went to live with his son in Hampstead when he became ill, and then was admitted to Hampstead Hospital, where he died. That's why I asked you if your ancestor had any children, because he may have gone to stay with them. Another possibility is that the death entry has been wrongly transcribed, but this is quite rare.