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Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.
From Christine Simpson:
‘I have a question about the death of my 3x great-grandfather, Benjamin Bullock, who was born in Shottle, Derbyshire in 1807.
He and his family moved to Sheffield from Pilough, Derbyshire, shortly after the 1851 census and after many years of searching I found his burial at St John’s Church Park, Sheffield, on 7 February 1852. I immediately decided to send for a copy of the death certificate but I couldn’t find the registration of his death after looking at every Benjamin registered around that time. I assumed that he wouldn’t have been able to have been buried without sight of a death certificate and wonder if you can enlighten me on this?’
Stephen says:
‘Hello Christine.
This is an interesting and salutary tale! One tends to assume that the indexes are complete, at least for marriages and deaths. There is known to have been under-registration of births in the early years. Also, if I recall correctly, there was some ‘over-registration’ by one or two corrupt registrars who were over-incentivised by the per-event registration fees and contrived to invent some births to pad out their wallets. I do not, however, recall reading about under-registration of deaths.
Out of interest, I took a look at the other two names on the image you included with your emailed query – Frances Edgill and James Hall – both of whom are in the General Register Office indexes. The GRO volume and page references in March quarter 1852 are vol 9c page 220 for Edgill and 9c 231 for Hall. There is a Benjamin Coward at 9c 216 and Benjamin Green at 9c 220 (same page as Frances Edgill). It’s just possible that one of these two men is your ancestor, and that he had an alias.
The other explanation, perhaps more likely, is that this was a simple clerical error. Prior to computerisation, the GRO staff compiled the national indexes from the submissions of the local registrars. They did this manually, using, one imagines, a painstaking and incredibly time-consuming process involving index cards or slips of papers, which were then alphabetised and sorted by hand. During the process of copying the names from the district registrar’s copy returns into the index, it is inevitable that some entries would have been missed. Mostly, these would have been odd entries here and then, committed by a clerk suffering from fatigue, but occasionally two pages rather than one of the register would be turned and a whole double-page spread would be omitted by accident from the national index. Two fascinating books were written on this subject, concentrating on the early marriage indexes, by New Zealander Mike Foster – Comedy of Errors and its sequel Comedy of Errors Act II – which I can wholeheartedly recommend to any readers interested in the detail of the GRO’s indexing processes.
You can check whether your ancestor was a victim of this sort of indexing oversight by approaching the district registrar. They, of course, hold the original register, a copy of which was compiled and sent to the GRO (which, incidentally, was another point in the process where there could have been an error or omission!). If you are local, you could visit Sheffield Register Office and explain the situation to the registry staff, who should be able to search the original death register for you. If not local, you might want to phone them first and then complete and post to them the death certificate application form available on a different page of their website.
Perhaps you could let us know if you manage to get a copy of the death certificate?’
If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this month, you could be lucky next time!
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Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.
From Christine Simpson:
‘I have a question about the death of my 3x great-grandfather, Benjamin Bullock, who was born in Shottle, Derbyshire in 1807.
He and his family moved to Sheffield from Pilough, Derbyshire, shortly after the 1851 census and after many years of searching I found his burial at St John’s Church Park, Sheffield, on 7 February 1852. I immediately decided to send for a copy of the death certificate but I couldn’t find the registration of his death after looking at every Benjamin registered around that time. I assumed that he wouldn’t have been able to have been buried without sight of a death certificate and wonder if you can enlighten me on this?’
Stephen says:
‘Hello Christine.
This is an interesting and salutary tale! One tends to assume that the indexes are complete, at least for marriages and deaths. There is known to have been under-registration of births in the early years. Also, if I recall correctly, there was some ‘over-registration’ by one or two corrupt registrars who were over-incentivised by the per-event registration fees and contrived to invent some births to pad out their wallets. I do not, however, recall reading about under-registration of deaths.
Out of interest, I took a look at the other two names on the image you included with your emailed query – Frances Edgill and James Hall – both of whom are in the General Register Office indexes. The GRO volume and page references in March quarter 1852 are vol 9c page 220 for Edgill and 9c 231 for Hall. There is a Benjamin Coward at 9c 216 and Benjamin Green at 9c 220 (same page as Frances Edgill). It’s just possible that one of these two men is your ancestor, and that he had an alias.
The other explanation, perhaps more likely, is that this was a simple clerical error. Prior to computerisation, the GRO staff compiled the national indexes from the submissions of the local registrars. They did this manually, using, one imagines, a painstaking and incredibly time-consuming process involving index cards or slips of papers, which were then alphabetised and sorted by hand. During the process of copying the names from the district registrar’s copy returns into the index, it is inevitable that some entries would have been missed. Mostly, these would have been odd entries here and then, committed by a clerk suffering from fatigue, but occasionally two pages rather than one of the register would be turned and a whole double-page spread would be omitted by accident from the national index. Two fascinating books were written on this subject, concentrating on the early marriage indexes, by New Zealander Mike Foster – Comedy of Errors and its sequel Comedy of Errors Act II – which I can wholeheartedly recommend to any readers interested in the detail of the GRO’s indexing processes.
You can check whether your ancestor was a victim of this sort of indexing oversight by approaching the district registrar. They, of course, hold the original register, a copy of which was compiled and sent to the GRO (which, incidentally, was another point in the process where there could have been an error or omission!). If you are local, you could visit Sheffield Register Office and explain the situation to the registry staff, who should be able to search the original death register for you. If not local, you might want to phone them first and then complete and post to them the death certificate application form available on a different page of their website.
Perhaps you could let us know if you manage to get a copy of the death certificate?’
If you’d like to send your question to Stephen, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Stephen only has time to answer a couple of queries each month but if yours wasn’t answered this month, you could be lucky next time!
More...
Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.