Extended death certificate ?

[MaggieT]

I'm new to this forum and hoping someone is reading and can offer advice. I need the date of birth of someone who was born in Ireland but died in England. I bought his death certificate thinking I'd get the D.O.B from that, but apparently up to the 1960's death certs only gave an age and not a date. BUT... someone has suggested there may be an extended 'full' cert you can buy that gives more information .... is this correct? Really hope so! :D

[Olde Crone Holden]

Never heard of an extended certificate. The certificate you got from the GRO will be the fullest one there is. Sorry!

OC

[Guest]

wonder if Maggie means the full version as opposed to a short one ?

[Guest]

maybe put their name on here and see if anybody can find anything

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I think Maggie, or her informant, may be confusing death certs with birth certs, where you could have the "short" version for free but paid for a "full" cert, which included details of the parents.
If you applied to the GRO or the local office for a copy cert at a later date, you could only have the "full" version as you had to pay the standard fee for the service.

Short certs haven't been available for several decades.

Jay

[Olde Crone Holden]

.......and there never was a short version of the death cert!

Maggie, I suggest you ask your informant where they think you can get this " extended" death cert from.

OC

[Guest]

oops oh no your right I was thinking of birth certs.

[Sylvia C]

In all truth, I have never believed that the death certificate gave, or gives, you true information ..........

everything about the deceased is provided by the informant, and is "hearsay". In other words, the informant only knows what the deceased has told them.

This applies no matter whether the informant is the spouse, a child or other relation, or the hospital employee responsible for filing for death certificates.

The only information on a death certificate that I believe can be trusted as accurate are the following ..........

date and place of death
cause of death
name, address and position of informant
name and address of doctor and/or the coroner.

The deceased may not have told everyone his/her full name (or even the birth name), correct age or birth date, or even marital status.

Case in point .....

..... my own grandfather had the whole family celebrating his birthday on December 25. The year was sometimes stated to be 1885 or 1884 ..... so we never really knew how old he was!!

His son registered the death, giving the birth date as December 25 1885.

A few weeks later, Uncle found a birth certificate hidden away in a drawer .......... father/grandfather was born January 9 1886 :D

We think what might have happened was that grandfather's parents celebrated his birthday on December 25 so they would only have to buy one present. He might then have had to get his birth certificate either when called up in WW1 in 1915 or before being shipped out to India and "Mesopotamia" with the MGC in 1917. He must have decided to keep the real date secret.

It would be interesting to know if he told his wife!

These two both lied when they got married ....... he added 2 years to his age, she added 1. That made him 19 and her 20, instead of 17 and 19. No point to it as far as I can make out, as they still needed parental permission, and at least one of the fathers attended the wedding, while her sister was married immediately before them and then she and her new husband were witnesses to Clara!

[AntonyM]

Short certificates for birth are still issued free of charge at all birth registrations. You can also buy a replacement short certificate if you want (but I can't imagine why you would).

Death certificates do not come in a short version - the certificate is a full copy of the register entry. Dates of birth will not be shown until 1969 - place of birth is now also included (if known).

Registration is an informant led process, which does mean the information sometimes is only as good as the person registering knows it to be, so can be wrong, incomplete or just guessed at !

[Guest]

I hadn't known the date of birth wont be recorded before 1969, interesting.

[Night Owl]

Case in point .....

..... my own grandfather had the whole family celebrating his birthday on December 25. The year was sometimes stated to be 1885 or 1884 ..... so we never really knew how old he was!!

His son registered the death, giving the birth date as December 25 1885.

A few weeks later, Uncle found a birth certificate hidden away in a drawer .......... father/grandfather was born January 9 1886 :D

We think what might have happened was that grandfather's parents celebrated his birthday on December 25 so they would only have to buy one present. He might then have had to get his birth certificate either when called up in WW1 in 1915 or before being shipped out to India and "Mesopotamia" with the MGC in 1917. He must have decided to keep the real date secret.

It would be interesting to know if he told his wife!

These two both lied when they got married ....... he added 2 years to his age, she added 1. That made him 19 and her 20, instead of 17 and 19. No point to it as far as I can make out, as they still needed parental permission, and at least one of the fathers attended the wedding, while her sister was married immediately before them and then she and her new husband were witnesses to Clara!

A different explanation could be like what happened to my grandmother. She was born on 31st July 1906 but her parents didn't register the birth within the required 6 weeks. In order to avoid paying a fine, they lied to the registrar and gave her date of birth as 31st August. We always celebrated her birthday in July but on anything official her birth was August. She was particularly miffed that she had to work a month after her correct retirement age and that her pension wasn't payable until 31st August

[Olde Crone Holden]

......or my friend's father who died in a care home. Family couldn't get there in time to register the death, so care home staff did it. They knew him as Bert, but that was just his nickname from his habit of always saying Bert, Bert (but but). Family tried to change it to his real name but it was such a rigmarole they gave up!

Someone is going to be mystified when they look for his death in about 100 years, lol.

OC

[Sylvia C]

Jackie ....

that wouldn't apply to my grandfather, as he really was born on January 9 1886 ..... I have his birth certificate. They just seemed to have celebrated his birthday 2 weeks early, and he made us do the same thing!

To add to the confusion, he wasn't baptised until 29 Dec 1886, the same day as his sister whose birth was registered Dec quarter 1886

[Sylvia C]

OC ...........


now that really is an example of not getting the correct information from a death certificate :D

[Guest]

thats funny Jackie, wonder how long it takes for them to work it out OC ;D, not quite the same but ,my nan never registered the birth of her first son born before she married, till after she married, on his bap he is George Arthur Knight son of Charles and Celia Knight, but on the Birth Reg he is George Arthur Miller son of Charles Miller and Celia Miller ,maiden name Knight.
My dads death has the wrong birth date, as the woman who did it did not know when he was born.

[Night Owl]

Jackie ....

that wouldn't apply to my grandfather, as he really was born on January 9 1886 ..... I have his birth certificate. They just seemed to have celebrated his birthday 2 weeks early, and he made us do the same thing!

To add to the confusion, he wasn't baptised until 29 Dec 1886, the same day as his sister whose birth was registered Dec quarter 1886

That's my point Sylvia. I have my grandmother's birth cert and it says she was born on 31st August. However I know she was born on 31st July and we always celebrated her birthday on her real birthday - 1 month before the date on the cert. If she hadn't told me this I would have assumed that her correct birthday was August (and that there was a mistake on her death cert which says she was born in July)

Your grandfather's cert says he was born on 9th January because that's the date whoever registered the birth gave the registrar. The interesting thing would be to look at the date the birth was registered. If it was within 6 weeks of 25th December then my theory wouldn't apply

[Sylvia C]

Jackie ...........

now you made me go and find his certificate.

The birth was registered on 21 February 1885 by his mother, which is more than 6 weeks after December 25 ............. so maybe he was right, and he really was born on December 25 1884!

Ah well, I'll never know the truth now!

[Vivian]

You can view Irish Birth Certificates 1864-1915 at https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy....vil-search.jsp

[Macbev]

She was born on 31st July 1906 but her parents didn't register the birth within the required 6 weeks. In order to avoid paying a fine, they lied to the registrar and gave her date of birth as 31st August.

Almost identical to OH's grandfather's birth......registered in Ireland, together with a girl cousin, by their aunt, 18 Oct 1875, giving his d.o.b as 15 Oct 1875. I would have accepted this without question had it not been for the baptism I subsequently found dated 22 July 1875.

I quote the answer given me by the Donegal Ancestry Centre:"it was a requirement to register full details of a child's birth within 21 days. Failure to do so invoked a fine and in rural areas particularly, the 21 day deadline for registering births was frequently disregarded. In order to avoid payment of the fine the dates of birth were adjusted to comply with the deadline.
Where Church records give the dates of birth these are generally more accurate than those given in civil records, however, variations of up to nine months can occur. "

And of course, when I brought my findings to the attention of my OH, he remarked 'Oh, we always celebrated Grandpa's birthday in July, not October' :(

[MaggieT]

Never heard of an extended certificate. The certificate you got from the GRO will be the fullest one there is. Sorry!

OC

Thanks for replying - I've hit the proverbial brick wall sadly. I'm trying to find my dad's family in Ireland. He is no longer with us, nor any of his direct family. His Grandad came over from Ireland around 1881/2 with one child - John. They went on to have other children born in Liverpool but it's John I've been trying to get info on, as he seems to be the only link to finding the family in Ireland. We think they're originally from Co Carlow but when you try to access Irish records, again, no date of birth on anything? It seems crazy! Ive found what COULD be John's baptism record but without the DOB I can never say for sure its them. Am I missing something here? Is there any other way of finding them?