Death Record Success
Laura Berry reveals the Who Do You Think You Are? team’s recommendations for completing the picture of an ancestor’s life by uncovering the details of their demise
Transform your family tree with 10 expert tips from Who Do You Think You Are? researcher Laura Berry
Family historians often overlook ordering death certificates because they’re not always essential for taking a family tree back in time, yet they frequently provide the allimportant story that we need to make an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? work. “How extraordinary! It is like something out of Sherlock Holmes… We’re going back into some real turn-of-the-century derringdo here,” exclaimed the actor and comedian Griff Rhys Jones while on the hunt for the death certificate of his great grandfather Daniel Price. In the episode, broadcast in 2007, Griff unearthed two Daniel Prices who had been poisoned before finally identifying the correct certificate for his ancestor, who was killed after a drunken brawl.
Dealing With Death
Civil registration started on 1 July 1837 in England and Wales and on 1 January 1855 in Scotland, so prior to these dates burial records are the most common evidence of a death. Although these rarely state the cause of death, they can be equally emotive. For example, in 2014 the conclusion of Brian Blessed’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? at his great grandfather’s graveside moved him to tears for the first time in his adult life.
Perhaps you’ve hit a brick wall and can’t find anything that looks likely for your ancestor in the death indexes, or you’ve found a death certificate but are struggling to establish whether it’s the right person because it wasn’t registered by the deceased’s next of kin. Either way, these tips are designed to help you hone in on a missing record and find out more about the deceased.