RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Ayashi on Tuesday 18 November 25 20:28 GMT (UK)
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Hi all
I decided to 'treat' myself to some death certificates. They are for a branch of the family I haven't yet proven but I went for them partly out of curiosity, partly because there is a good chance I'm right and partly to see who the informants were (hopefully helpful!)
They arrived today and I made the mistake of opening one during my lunch break at work- I gasped so loudly I'm surprised my coworkers in the next room didn't come to see what the problem was.
My (possible) 4th great grandfather, Benjamin BELL, passed aged 69. "Emaciation and debility consequent on cutting his throat on the 9th September 1867 [exactly 6 months prior] whilst temporarily insane".
Poor man :'(
Of course, back then not only could you be in hot water just for the attempt, but the punishment for being successful was that the person couldn't be buried on consecrated ground and the soul would spend eternity in Hell. I once read a document of inquests (I forget for where) where you'd be surprised how few people who killed themselves actually committed suicide. Of dozens of cases, only two or so were found to have maliciously and purposefully destroyed the life given to them by God. The rest had some frequently creative accidents (such as mistakenly downing a whole bottle of arsenic rat poison after forgetting having bought it an hour earlier) or, in many cases, were inferred to be upstanding, law abiding, God fearing Christians who, presumably under the influence of the Devil, had sudden and insuppressible intrusive thoughts and couldn't possibly be blamed for having done so. I can only assume the two people who did it on purpose were either not liked very much or the gentlemen of the Inquest couldn't think of a good enough excuse within the evidence provided.
I have no idea what brought on his "temporary insanity"- two more of his children died in short succession the following year so 'at least' he wasn't around for that, I guess? :'(
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The "temporary insanity" verdict allowed burial in consecrated ground. A relative of mine committed suicide in 1863 and the verdict was similar. One of the censuses said he was deaf, he never married, was nearly 40, and I guess life as a farm labourer just got on top of him.
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What is tw in the subject?
Zaph
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I understand the 'temporary insanity' verdict. I meant his own motivations. He'd lost a lot of family members, but not recently to his own death. He was getting older so perhaps his health was worsening, but there's no secondary cause as given on the certificate. He might have been worried about his job or house, although I don't think he'd have needed to be concerned about the latter other than pride- as long as he hadn't alienated himself from his family there were a lot of people lodging (and dying in some cases) with other family members.
It's a bit unfortunate that the abode is so vague. I'm not sure where he was living for his last six months.
Zaphod: Tw means "trigger warning" :) In other words, 'be warned, sensitive topic'
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Zaphod: Tw means "trigger warning" :) In other words, 'be warned, sensitive topic'
A rather dubious warning if it isn't understood ? :)
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Zaphod: Tw means "trigger warning" :) In other words, 'be warned, sensitive topic'
A rather dubious warning if it isn't understood ? :)
Respectfully, I'd argue that it would be understood by most people under the age of, lets say, 40.
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I suppose anything could finally trigger temporary insanity, it may have been something that had been going on for a long time
I don’t think you needed to add the tw at all, the word suicide would be sufficient to alert most people.
I do wonder what percentage of members who use rootschat are under 40 though.
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Agree with you Rosie.
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I have to say, especially as a long term member of Rootschat, I'm surprised and a bit offended that several people can read a title saying "sad about death certificate" with details of an ancestor who died horribly and derail and reduce the entire thing to complaining about my use of two letters (and yes, I am myself below 40). Sorry, but shame on anyone who thinks that is the primary point of this thread.
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I have to say, especially as a long term member of Rootschat, I'm surprised and a bit offended that several people can read a title saying "sad about death certificate" with details of an ancestor who died horribly and derail and reduce the entire thing to complaining about my use of two letters (and yes, I am myself below 40). Sorry, but shame on anyone who thinks that is the primary point of this thread.
I don't think anyone was complaining I certainly was not, just wondering what the tw stood for. I have a family member that committed suicide in the 1950's so can understand how you feel. They lost their wife (my aunt) and even though they remarried they never got over it.
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Zaphod: Tw means "trigger warning" :) In other words, 'be warned, sensitive topic'
A rather dubious warning if it isn't understood ? :)
Respectfully, I'd argue that it would be understood by most people under the age of, lets say, 40.
Respectfully or not, your (presumably underestimated) age-limit is about half my age. But it may also be true that many RootsChatters are above it anyway, so your 'tw' will possibly not be understood by the majority :-[
But as has been suggested, trigger warnings are a daft idea anyway. If anyone is seriously offended by something which has not been intended to offend, whose is the problem ?
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I have to say, especially as a long term member of Rootschat, I'm surprised and a bit offended that several people can read a title saying "sad about death certificate" with details of an ancestor who died horribly and derail and reduce the entire thing to complaining about my use of two letters (and yes, I am myself below 40). Sorry, but shame on anyone who thinks that is the primary point of this thread.
Part of the failure to communicate here might be due to the fact that by the time you have done family history for 20 years or so, as many of us have, you have seen just about everything. And maybe we didn't stop to take note of the fact that this was your ancestor, not some stranger's death record, as he is to the rest of us.
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Some people gasp when they find out their grandmother was pregnant when she married. - Both my grandmother and my wife's were. One of them had to wait to marry because she wasn't legally old enough - she had to be 16.
Some people gasp when they find 14 year olds working in cotton mills. It happened all the time. I've seen a few where they were joined in the mill by their 12 year old sibling.
Others gasp at suicide. My father's uncle killed himself shortly after retiring. My grandmother's aunt also took her own life, I haven't researched possible motives. Personally I was glad to learn about both - not that I was glad about what they did but because it helps explain why I have felt the way I do most of my life.
In your 4th g grandfather's case, being 69 years old might have been a good enough reason. (I am older. Ask me how I feel some days. On second thought, don't.)
I have managed to decipher a few later generation acronyms, just not "tw", so thanks for explaining. Next time I will know.
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Ayashi, where was my complaint? I just saw it and didn't know what it meant and asked. There do seem to be dozens if not hundreds of cryptic abbreviations these days. I'm not even really sure what a trigger warning actually is.
There is a type of software called a text expander which allows you to create an entry for an abbreviation, and each time you type that abbreviation it will then expand it to whatever the letters represent.
Ideally abbreviations and initialisms should only be used if they are absolutely every day expressions.
Zaph