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Does anyone else order death certs.

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  • #21
    I do have a spreadsheet for which certificates I have but I keep forgetting to update it. Then I just end up with the same problem, having to go through them to see which ones I missed. Can't win!
    Anne

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    • #22
      I have bought quite a few and some of them have been a great source of information.
      My great grandmother was said to have died in childbirth with my nan, but when I got her DC I found out that she had died of a burst appendix when my nan was nearly three months old. I don't know how the story got changed so much and I wish my nan had still been alive so I could tell her. Both events were registered in the same quarter in 1899, so if I hadn't bought the certificate I would have assumed the family story was correct.

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      • #23
        Darannon

        My grandfather was taken pow in WW1. He was an only child and when he did not return after the war, my great grandmother died of a broken heart. Erm....no she didn't! Her death cert shows she died of Spanish Flu in 1919 and my grandfather was present at her death!

        OC

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        • #24
          Well blow me down, I struck lucky in the first 5 minutes of sorting out my death certificates! I decided to work through the certificates that I have for one branch of the family and add proper sources and citations on FTM. The third one I came to was a death certificate which I bought way back in the 1980s when I started researching and probably didn't really look at all the details. Until now.

          The informant was M Emerson, his widow. But I could see from my tree that his wife had died 20 years before him and her name was Emily. So a quick search on Ancestry revealed that he had married a woman called Matilda, 8 years after his first wife had died when he was 65 and she was 44, a widow. And without doing this exercise in tidying up certificates I would probably never have known. I'm off to look for his will now
          Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

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          • #25
            Originally posted by Anne in Carlisle View Post
            I do have a spreadsheet for which certificates I have but I keep forgetting to update it. Then I just end up with the same problem, having to go through them to see which ones I missed. Can't win!
            Anne
            I have queries in FH for each certificate type I have (and one for wills) - which works fine if I remember how to input it properly and to update them across the computers!!

            I have recently ordered two certificates just to see where they were living when they died.
            Caroline
            Caroline's Family History Pages
            Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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            • #26
              Caroline, what do you mean by 'queries in FH?'
              Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

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              • #27
                The program Caroline and I use is Family Historian. You can do all sorts of clever queries and sorting with it as well as making little icons to appear on your diagram tree to illustrate that. I have red dots for birth certificate, black for death etc.
                Trouble is I need to remember to update it! All the facilities are there it's just operator error!
                Anne

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by Anne in Carlisle View Post
                  The program Caroline and I use is Family Historian. You can do all sorts of clever queries and sorting with it as well as making little icons to appear on your diagram tree to illustrate that. I have red dots for birth certificate, black for death etc.
                  Trouble is I need to remember to update it! All the facilities are there it's just operator error!
                  Anne
                  That’s a handy thing to know Anne. The quicker I get my main tree error free the better. This would be ideal for me as I have a lot of certs.

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                  • #29
                    That sounds very useful. I don't think there is anything like that on Family Tree Maker but I will persevere with this process of adding sources at least for all the certificates that I have on my main lines as it will help me to clarify what I need to follow up. And it is easier to learn how it works if I do it over and over
                    Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

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                    • #30
                      Like most people have said, I order those on my main family tree line, I always feel that it completes the individuals journey and makes everything neat and tidy. Occasionally there is some extra details or surprising additional info, so there is value in ordering the Certificates.
                      My Family History Blog Site:

                      https://chiddicksfamilytree.com

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                      • #31
                        Not just certificates though, burial registers pre registration can also be a mine of unexpected information, lol. The vicars comments are rarely transcribed but I have found that right hand column invaluable.

                        my umpty times great grandparents had 19 children in 25 years, not uncommon in the early 1700s. The first six died in the space of three weeks of smallpox. I wept. The next thirteen all died before adulthood, except two, one of whom I am descended from. Th eir mother outlived them all by thirty years, dying aged 84. I wept some more.

                        Jane Green, sister of my 6xggm, died aged 19 "found dead in a field, of childbed with her bastard stillborn infant". She had been jilted at the altar a few months before (groom sent word he will not attend). I wept again.

                        I have many more but the point is - when you are doing family history, you need every bit of information you can find, to turn them into people rather than just a list of names.

                        OC

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                        • #32
                          All of this is invaluable - I will be getting some certs. ordered next week!

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                          • #33
                            Like the others, i get all certs for the direct lines. I've started getting ones for aunts and uncles too, to complete and correct info, (you wouldn't believe how many dates and places are wrong without certs, and how many are "corrected" to avoid registrar fines...) but also for medical histories of families. Gran's paternal family has breast cancer, handy to know for future, even though it hasn't shown up in three generations.

                            i have all the bmd civil records i can find for my australian, irish, scottish, german and french lines. I'm working through the aunts and uncles in england atm. You'd be amazed at what info is recorded and who informants are.

                            i also get all the records i can for small and difficult families as you have no idea what info you will find from a seemingly insignificant record like a death for an aunt or uncle, which may be the only record you will ever have to prove relationships. And sometimes the only way to go backwards is to research sideways.

                            i have digital copies of all records and add them to ancestry. That way i can do a quick check to see what records i already have when working on families.

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                            • #34
                              Originally posted by kylejustin View Post
                              Gran's paternal family has breast cancer, handy to know for future, even though it hasn't shown up in three generations.
                              When I was unwell a few years ago I ordered my mother's death certificate to take with me when I saw the consultant as I didn't know the exact name of her cancer, and didn't want to ask my dad as I didn't tell anyone beyond my OH & sons what was going on. I also knew the cause of death my, grandmother, great gm and 2xg-gm though I wasn't asked. It turned out mum's cancer was incredibly rare and does not run in families so had no relevance in my case.

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                              • #35
                                Originally posted by Jill on the A272 View Post
                                It turned out mum's cancer was incredibly rare and does not run in families so had no relevance in my case.
                                ​​​​​​that's lucky for you. Sorry for your mother though.

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                                • #36
                                  Given everything and the kitchen sink that has gone wrong with hubby over the past decade and a bit, it turned out very handy that I knew what all his forebears had died of, even his natural grandfather on his mother’s side.

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