General Chat

Earlier this year I searched for 4 missing children of my great great grandparents (mentioned as deceased in census 1911, born and died between censuses), and found 3 of them had died in the first qtr of 1890.

I ended up buying their death certs, and found all three had died within the space of a week from diphtheria.

Somewhat annoyingly, (having spent a bit of money on birth and death certs to be sure they were my missing family members) when the Surrey parish records were recently added to Ancestry, I found their burial records on there.. The three separate burials had been bracketed together in the parish register and a note added to say they had died from diphtheria, rendering my purchase of the death certs somewhat redundant.

Welsh graveyards are great for naming ideas, as I often tell my children Anwyl and Goff :-D

Thank you thank you thank you to you all for your advice and Suggestion. It's really addictive on here I've found pictures of my family too now on another site (which made me quite excited and a little tearful too) I should be doing my husbands accounts today but I can't seem to get off my research in to my family. Thanks to Karen of the desert for the tip for the birth certificates I shall get them ordered from the site you recommended. And thanks to all of you for your support. And not thinking I'm a fruit loop.. I will hand over all my research to the local parish but sadly not the one my family was involved with as it the church was demolished in 1965. But I will seek some place to put it for future budding Genealogist to read. Xx And as for my wondering round graveyards.. It's where I found my children's names whilst I was pregnant I mean everyone has had the name before haven't that?? Xx thanks again and happy hunting xx :-D :-D :-D

On the internet, there's a 'Chronology Report' of my late father in law.
It only cites his parents and children, but gives details of his career, and quotes newspaper reports of his career and obituaries.
My daughter put his name on the internet - and it came up.
It spooked her out. However, it's a good start if she wants to start tracing his tree!!
It is a bit strange though, as it mentions his sons, but omits his wife's name - even his marriage!!
It also misses out other bits of his life - like his OBE and his illegitimate son, who he really wanted to find. (ex & I found him after fil's death),

Why not put details of the burial on Findagrave. This will help all other people with an interest in the deceased.

I guess authors do research all the time on families not their own.

A lady wrote a book about a great great aunt of mine in 2003. Her publishing house seem to have spent what we would call a fortune on research. It was extremely useful to me as I could never have afforded to pay a few thousand for professional researchers.

And I often watch a TV programme from Victorian times and check out the family on censuses etc. I think many of us have discussed WDYTYA by trying to be cleverer than the researchers of that programme. :-)

Obviously only the death certs will give you the cause of death . There were a lot at that time that died of TB because it was endemic.

On another note I knew OH,s gran had many siblings that died in the late 1800/early 1900.s the 1911 census showed the family had 11 children but only 3 survived . I bought a couple of certs for the babies many had died before aged 1 sadly the cause of death was syphilis that they must have been born with.

Not nice but was again a disease at that time as were other VD,s

Further to Kay??? s post, they might be very pleased if you where able to send them a photo of the headstone and transcription :-)

On a different site to this, someone has been photographing headstones in a Californian cemetery for findagrave.com - they took the time to search trees for the names and post the info. Most welcome considering the distance from here to there!

Dont strangers to us research our trees all the time before they contact for the connection?

As you put you have found a couple of matches,,,,,,where? on this site ?as if so perhaps they would be delighted with your findings.....

Vicki, are you sure there is nothing left for you to find in your family tree? How far back have your mother, grandmother, aunt gone? Have they included all the siblings of the grandparents, gt grandparents, gt gt grandparents etc, plus the children of those siblings? My family tree had been 'done' by several people in the past, but I found one or two errors, and I was also able to fill some gaps and extend the tree back further. And I have found some distant relatives about whom we had no previous knowledge. Quite exciting. Good luck with whatever you do anyway.

DC aside which will cost you but give the cause of death, you could look in the parish records to see if there was an unusually high mortality rate during that short period.

It could be that there was an epidemic of something like measles or some other childhood disease that is normally now non-fatal.

Once you've 'finished' researching this family, how about typing it up and donating it to the church to be left on their 'information' table, or uploaded to their website? You could also look to see if the parish is represented on the Online Parish Clerks Project, or if there is a local FH society who would accept it for their archives

I actually traced the family of a vicar who was named on a number of family marriage certificates. I noticed that on some later certificates it appeared that they were signed by someone with the same surname - I found they were father and son :-)

The information will be on the death certificates. Unfortunately these cost £9.25 each, but if you do decide to get one/some, use the GRO site to order them and not one of the 'agencies' who usually put a surcharge on top http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

I don't find it odd that you have taken an interest in another family's history, and I don't find it odd that you like wandering around a churchyard, intrigued by what you have found .
I have done something similar. Quite near to where my Dad is buried is an unloved grave, marked with only the name on the cross/marker which the undertaker leaves on new graves. The surname is the same as my mother's maiden name, highly unusual since a) it is Lithuanian and b) we had no knowledge of any other Lithuanians living in the quietly remote area where my parents lived.
It took my interest, I tried searching and have come up with absolutely nothing!
I hope you have better luck. :-)

Their death certificates would have the information. They usually do have cause of death.

Thank you Joy. I've found out quite a lot as there was plenty of information on the graves stone. And the local records kept are quite complete unlike when my mum was tracing our family. However I've made it my mission to find out the reason why these children died so close together. I've found there house as its local to where I live and I've got copies of the census records from when the father was born. I was wondering how will I find out how the children passed? Any tips would be appreciated very much and would this information be on their death certificates? :-)

I would be delighted if someone could help with my tree ... as Joy says it's local history. Come and do my Irish side any time please :-D

anybody wanting to research my family
i would say best of luck
i think its good your intrested not only in your own family history
othere peoples to
after all its all part of local history so good luck x :-D :-D

Hi all I'm very new to this. I'm not tracing my family as my mother/grandmother have done this as has my auntie on my dads side. So I've no one to fine. But whilst walking in my local Cemetery last Saturday (I walk there as its beautiful) I noticed a grave that is a bit bashed in and unloved and I noticed that the family had several children that died within 4 weeks of each other and it pricked my curiosity and I've started researching the family. I just wanted to know do you think this is wrong to look at someone else's family as I've got a couple of matches and I was wondering if it was. Appropriate for me to make contact with one person who's tree keeps popping up? The family I'm searching all born late 1880s-1904. So its not recent .. So my question is would you be upset if a stranger looked up your family?? :-D