FindmyPast adds English and Welsh death and probate records

The following records have been added to FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk):

Greater London Burial Index
Were your ancestors buried in Greater London? Over 45,000 new records covering 10 parishes across the region have been added to the index and are now available to search. The records in this collection date all the way back to 1399 and will reveal the date and location of your ancestor's burial as well as their occupation, address, denomination and age at death.

Middlesex Monumental Inscriptions
A further 3,400 records from the parishes of Harefield St Mary the Virgin and Sunbury St Mary have been added to the collection. Middlesex Monumental Inscriptions spans the years 1485 to 2014 and includes transcripts for each entry. Transcripts may include your ancestor's age at death, death year, burial location and inscription. Inscriptions can reveal the names of relatives as well as other biographical details.

Dorset Memorial Inscriptions
Over 13,000 additional records from 35 burial sites across Dorset are now available to search.Each record contains a transcript of an original inscription taken from gravestones, tombs, monuments and even stained glass windows. The information contained in each record may vary considerably depending on a number of factors such as weathering or the type of memorial.

England & Wales Government Probate Death Index 1960-2019
Find a probate record from 1960 to 2019 with the England & Wales government probate index containing more than 14 million records. You can now search the government probate index on Findmypast. The index will give you a person’s death date, probate date, residence, next of kin and more.

British & Irish Newspaper Update
This week we have added 182,823 brand new pages including six brand new London titles to our collection. This week's new additions span the first half of the nineteenth century and include the world’s first ever evening newspaper, the Star (London). Our most recent update also includes the Statesman (London) and the Express (London). The Statesman (London) was a daily title owned by Robert Wardell, but the newspaper went out of print in 1824 when Wardell sailed to Australia to found the country’s first ever independent newspaper, The Australian. Also now available to search is the Express (London), printed by William Anselm Jones in the mid-1800s, the British Press, a daily newspaper published in London in the early 1800s, and the Press (London), a Saturday paper from the mid-1800s.

Further details and links at https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/new/new-uk-burials-monumental-inscriptions-and-more

Chris

Order Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-Family-History-on-the-Internet-Paperback/p/16483. My next Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the OPRs course starts 4 November 2019 - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302. Further news published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Researching Scottish Death Records

Another article from the now departed Discover my Past Scotland magazine, this time from early 2010 (and suitably updated):

Researching Scottish Death Records

Genealogist Chris Paton offers some tips on how to trace evidence of your forebears’ demise…

One of the real ironies about family history research is that records surrounding the deaths of our ancestors can often tell us a great deal about how they once lived and provide useful information on the families that they left behind.

From 1855 to the present day, the death of every person in Scotland has been registered by the state and a copy held at the General Register Office for Scotland. The records have been digitised and are easily accessible at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh (https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/visit-us/scotlandspeople-centre), with online access also available via the pay-per-view ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk). The latter site restricts access to the full register records prior to the last fifty years only, for privacy reasons, although an online index is available, with which certified copies of more recent records can be ordered.

All statutory death records list the names of the deceased’s parents, including mother’s maiden name, a place, date and cause of death, usual residence and the informant’s details. From 1855 to 1860, the records noted the burial place of the deceased, but the name of any spouse was unfortunately omitted from 1856-1860. If your ancestor died in 1855, the records are especially helpful, in further listing the names of any children born to the deceased, with their ages, and if they had died before 1855, their own dates of death were also given. From 1967, the deceased’s date of birth has also been recorded. Military death records can be frustrating to use as no parent information is included, but if your ancestor died in the two world wars, the free to access Commonwealth War Graves Commission website at www.cwgc.org is also worth checking.

In some cases, where a cause of death has yet to be investigated (for example if there are suspicious circumstances), an initial cause may be noted and subsequently re-entered via the Register of Corrected Entries (RCE) once the procurator fiscal has concluded the investigation. This corrected entry will then be referred to in the margin of the original record, and can also be consulted, which may shed considerable further light on the circumstances.

Some illnesses described in early death records can seem incredibly unfamiliar, with tuberculosis for example noted variously as ‘phthisis pulmonala’, ‘consumption’, and ‘decline’, but websites such as https://www.medicinenet.com/medterms-medical-dictionary/article.htm can help to explain some of the ailments that you may encounter.

Prior to 1855, burials were recorded in both parish church records and in some cases in municipal registers held by the local town and burgh councils. The church records are often poor, and in many cases simply refer to a money payment made to hire a ‘mort cloth’ to drape over the coffin. About a third of Scottish churches kept any such records, and what survives is located in the main OPR and kirk session registers. Those records that have survived from the Church of Scotland records have been digitised and made available on the ScotlandsPeople website, along with records concerning the dissenting Presbyterian churches.

The pay-per-view Deceased Online website (www.deceasedonline.com) also has some burial records, including for the county of Angus, whilst most family history societies will have books and CDs listing monumental inscriptions from churchyards within their area, which can be particularly useful in identifying other family members (identify your local FHS from www.safhs.org.uk). Often gravestone inscriptions are the only record of an ancestor’s passing, but it is also worth noting that most people were not buried with headstones, it was simply too expensive. It is also worth checking your local county archives website for burial information, with records for Perth from 1794 available at http://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/3887/Perth-burgh-burial-registers-1794-1855-, for example, whilst the Friends of Dundee City Archives have placed a database for the city’s Howff cemetery online at https://www.fdca.org.uk/Howff_Burials.html. Another handy site worth visiting is Memento Mori at www.memento-mori.co.uk which has indices to many graveyards mainly in the Central Belt, and photographs of individual stones can be ordered up at a reasonable price.

Newspapers often carry obituaries or death notices, and in some cases where there may not be such a notice, there may well be a brief message listed a few days after a burial to thank people for their help at a difficult time, so it is always worth checking up to a couple of weeks beyond an actual date of death. Various titles can be accessed at local county libraries or at the National Library of Scotland, whilst several have also been digitised and made available online. The 19th Century British Library Newspaper Collection, for example, freely available via the National Library of Scotland's licensed digital collections (see www.nls.uk), has many editions of the Glasgow Herald, the Caledonian Mercury and the Aberdeen Journal, whilst the Scotsman is available online from 1817-1950 at http://archive.scotsman.com (and also free via the NLS). Many other titles are available through the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). The Edinburgh Gazette is also worth checking, freely available at https://www.thegazette.co.uk, as sometimes notices were issued for possible claimants of a deceased’s estate (creditors etc) to make themselves known to the executors.

Probate records can also provide information on the place and date of death. The ScotlandsPeople site has made available digital copies of all Scottish wills and testaments confirmed from 1513-1901, for just £5 per document, no matter its length. If the deceased left a will, he or she was said to have died ‘testate’, and the record of confirmation will be known as a ‘testament testamentar’. This will include the deceased’s date of death, a copy of the will, an inventory of his possessions, and further details such as where confirmation happened and who was appointed as executor or executrix. If the deceased was ‘intestate’, an inventory of possessions may have been recorded and the confirmation document issued known as a ‘testament dative’. The documents can help to build up a profile of the deceased’s wealth and can help to identify other family members. From 1877 to 1959 a series of ‘Calendars of Confirmations and Inventories’ was also produced, providing a summary of testaments confirmed in that period, and these can be accessed at many institutions, such as the National Archives of Scotland and the Mitchell Library, and even via your local LDS Family History Library. If your ancestor had property in England or Wales, it is also worth checking the PCC Wills collection at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-1384-1858/.

Married women could not leave a will until 1882, and land could not be bequeathed through such a document until 1868. Wills before this period deal only with the deceased’s ‘movable’ estate (clothing, money, bedding etc), which was usually split into three parts – the dead’s part, the bairn’s part and the widow’s part. As the eldest son usually inherited the land or property instead, he may not in fact be recorded in a will at all, but may appear in documents from a separate process altogether, whereby he would have to be confirmed by the courts as the legal heir before he could take possession. This was done through the ‘Services of Heirs’ process, with the judgement ‘retoured’ or returned to the Scottish Chancery, giving them the name of ‘retours’. Indexes and abridgements to these, covering the periods 1530-1699 and 1700-1859, are now freely available online - see https://britishgenes.blogspot.com/2018/08/scottish-services-of-heirs-indexes-1700.html.

It is worth noting that whilst a death record prior to 1855 may be difficult to locate, evidence for death can still be pursued, for example when listings in directories suddenly cease, or when land changes hands, as recorded in sasines registers and charters. Finally, remember that not a single death record will have been written by your ancestor, so always try to corroborate any information concerning a death from as many sources as possible, particularly wit regard to statutory death certificates, where the information given to the registrar was only as good as the informant providing it.

For more on Scottish death records, consult my Unlock the Past books, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition) and Discover Scottish  Civil Registration Records - details on how to purchase from various worldwide outlets can be found at https://britishgenes.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html.

Chris

My next Scottish Research Online course starts on 24 September 2018 - details at https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

Scottish Burial Traditions

This is another article written a few years ago for the now dearly departed Discover my Past Scotland magazine, this time from July 2011 - enjoy!

Scottish Burial Traditions

Chris Paton describes the final journey to the afterlife in older times…

As much as with baptisms and marriages, Scottish funerals were surrounded heavily by tradition in the past. Today we tend to think of death as a private affair, and the subsequent funeral or cremation the occasion where close friends and family can say goodbye. In the past however, the death of a person in a parish was a much more public occasion, providing nothing short of a holiday for many. The deceased may in fact have already witnessed the mourners coming in for the occasion, his friends and families having been alerted in advance, and undoubtedly causing he or she additional suffering from the resultant disturbance.

Between death and burial, a key fear was for the soul; windows would be opened to allow it to escape (and quickly closed to stop it coming back!), mirrors were covered and clocks stopped, in order that the person’s soul would not be confused or distracted as it departed. To prevent food and whisky being ‘corrupted’, a piece of iron was driven in, such as a small nail. The women would then clean and ‘kistan’ the body (place it in a coffin), after which it would then be watched prior to the funeral in a ‘lyje-wake’ or ‘waukan’. This was sometimes a merry occasion and at other times sombre, where friends and relatives could convey their regards, and touch the body as a mark of respect. Furthermore, in the Highlands, ‘earth was laid upon the corpse’, a tradition whereby small amounts of earth and salt were placed on a wooden plate on the deceased’s chest, symbolising the corruptibility of the body and the incorruptibility of the soul.

In his “Traditions of Perth” in 1832, author George Penny notes that when a person died in the burghs, the bellman would announce it around the town, reciting “Men and brethren, I let you to wit, that our brother, A. B., departed this life on Thursday last, and is to be interred on Sunday evening… when the company of all his brethren is expected”, long before newspaper intimations and funeral letters took on the same function. Following the death a merchant’s family would stop all trade until after the funeral, whilst on the day itself groups of ‘mourners’ would walk around the streets in a mob, an action which George Penny recalls in Perth as being merely ‘for the love of show’.

The normal funeral tradition followed across most of the country, in both the burghs and the rural parishes, was to gather the mourners on the Sunday morning for prayers, although the burial itself would not happen until the afternoon or even the evening. In Dundonald, Ayrshire, the Old Statistical Account notes how every person attending was given a pipe and tobacco to help while away the hours until the burial began. The provision of hospitality to the guest was all part of providing the deceased with a ‘decent burial’, with whisky, oat bread and cheese laid on. Many a person’s greatest fear was death in poverty, with a burial in a pauper’s grave, and so great efforts were made to save in advance for the time of death, in order not to land a burden on the family. On many occasions an alternative way to pay for the occasion was to auction off the deceased’s procession afterwards at a ‘roup’.

At times however, this hospitality could be taken to extremes, costing a small fortune and driving the minister to despair. In Gargunnock the minister noted in the 1790s that after a meal and a drink 'not a few return to the dirge, and sometimes forget what they have been doing, and where they are'. The dirge was the great feast after the burial, also known as a ‘dredgy’, though in places such as Campsie, the mourners were regularly plied with drams and shortbread before the burial through a custom known as a ‘service’. Penny recalls an amusing incident at the funeral of an elderly lady in Perth who had left a considerable fortune to two sons. After much drinking he notes the consequence. 'Some one hinted that it was time to proceed, as they had a considerable way to ride. Orders were accordingly given to get out the horses; the company mounted and set out, and proceeded a couple of miles towards the place of interment, before it was discovered that they had left the lady behind'!

With the burial time approaching, the coffin would be lifted and carried to the burial plot, with the procession led by a person ringing the mort-bell, in an attempt to drive evil spirits away. The body or coffin itself was covered in a dark mortcloth, hired from the kirk for the payment of a fee known as ‘mort-money’, and many would show their respects by carrying it part of the way. In 1896 the minister of West Kilbride, the Reverend James Lamb, noted in his book 'Annals of an Ayrshire Parish' just how profitable the hiring out of a mortcloth could be for the kirk in the 1770s: '…three qualities were at one time kept, which were hired out at different dates at diverse rates. Thus, in 1771, the rates are five shillings for the best, and three shillings for the second; but these rates are afterwards raised to eight shillings for the best, and four shillings for the second, and three shillings for the third, in the case of an adult; and one shilling and eightpence and one shilling and tenpence for a child. In the case of a person of special wealth or importance, however, the Kirk Session knew how to apply the screw; in such instances we sometimes find ten shillings charged.' In the burghs, the guilds and incorporations often maintained their own mortcloth, which they would let out instead of the kirk. The poor were not charged, however, and children under the age of ten were usually buried without the use of one. For the wealthier a hearse would be employed, rather than the coffin carried, with the undertaker usually the local joiner operating in a dual role.

At the kirk the women would go no further, returning home instead to prepare the dredgy, whilst the men attended to the burial. There were many traditions surrounding the graveyard itself. In Newburgh in Fife it was believed that if a person who had committed suicide was taken through the gate of the kirkyard, a child subsequently being presented through the gate for baptism would be cursed to end his or her days by the same fate. In Monquhitter, Aberdeenshire, there was a belief that the soul of the departed was not in fact quite so departed, it remaining behind to keep watch at the gate until its replacement arrived from the next funeral. This led to the frequent problem, as described in the First Statistical Account, whereby two funerals happening on the same day would often end in violence. If the two funeral parties met at the gate 'the dead were thrown down till the living decided by blows which ghost should be condemned to porter it'.

Prior to the 19th century a great desire held by many was to be buried in the parish of their ancestors, rather than in the village or town where they later came to reside. In Borthwick, Midlothian, the practise was so common that the minister writing the First Statistical Account of the parish recalled how 'there are not two farmers in these bounds who bury in this place', whilst in Kirpatrick-Irongray, Kirkcudbrightshire, it was noted that 'there are more funerals here from other parishes than from the parish itself'. This is something that is always worth bearing in mind if you can’t find your ancestor where he or she is supposed to be!

For more on Scottish burial records, and on traditions surrounding death, my books Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition) and Down and Out in Scotland,: Researching Ancestral Crisis may help - further details can be found at https://britishgenes.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html.

Chris

For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.