20th century British deaths

[keldon]

I've just posted this on another forum to help someone, so I thought I would also post it here.

Trying to find a death in the registers for the 20th century is often a problem. One technique I use is quite often successful. Using the telephone directories on Ancestry.co.uk, I search to see if they had a telephone. When their name drops off the directory that may well be as a result of their death. You can also check to see if in later years the partner takes over the telephone number.

The date they drop off the telephone directory is your starting point to go back through the registers. I have normally found the death within 1 - 5 years prior to them dropping off the directory.

Hope this helps anyone.

[Christine in Herts]

That's a good bit of lateral thinking! Thanks for the idea... one of those things that's obvious... except that I hadn't quite thought of it!

Christine

[Mary from Italy]

I've done that a couple of times, and it works very well, but it takes an awfully long time.

[Uncle John]

It's a bit quicker if you click through from FTM and manage to get a hit.

[KiteRunner]

It's really quick if your local record office has a selection of old phone books! (I just happen to have done that very thing when I was in there the other day!)

[Kit]

I've done it as well. Sadly though not many of my lot seem to have had a phone.

[Guy]

Yes that could work in a few cases but it does depend on a number of ifs.

The subject of the search has to have a telephone.
Telephone ownership like television ownership did not really become the norm until after the mid 1960s, prior to that a large percentage of the population did not have a phone in the house.

It has to be in his/her name.
This normally means only the father of a family could be traced using this method.

He/she has to stayed in the same area, even as late as the 1980s few people took their phone number with them when they moved even one street away from where they lived previously.

He/she was not ex-directory or did not decide to go ex-directory.

If the original subscriber dies the spouse/children notified the phone company and had the line changed to their name.
Quite often people simply carry on with the line still registered to the deceased family member.

He/she used a land-line and not a mobile.

Please note I am not trying to discourage the use of this method just pointing out a few of the reasons why difficulties may arise.
Cheers
Guy

[KiteRunner]

Well, if their name is rare enough then even if they moved house and changed their phone number, you will still be able to follow them through. I managed to follow a few of my relatives through that way - and figured out when a couple divorced as they started to appear under both names, her still at the old family home and him at a different address! Of course it's not so easy if they are listed as J. Smith or something.

[Mary from Italy]

It also helps to work out when someone died - I've traced one phone which was in the name of the husband, then it changed to the widow's name, and then to the widow's unmarried sister's name, all at the same address, so I could work out roughly when the husband and wife died.

They had a very common surname, and I had no idea of the dates of death (mid 20th c) so it was easier to do this than trawl the death indexes.

[Uncle John]

I had a well-to-do person who settled in England after a life in Argentina. Found her in the phone book for a few years (Farnham 3 or somthing similar at a rather posh address) and then it changed to her female relative's name. It was a very distant twig so I only bothered to gather the closest snippets of information.

[Richard in Perth]

Yes that could work in a few cases but it does depend on a number of ifs...

... He/she used a land-line and not a mobile.

... I don't think that would be a problem pre-1984! After that date, the deaths index is of course fully searchable so you shouldn't be needing to use these sort of techniques to find a death in any case.