Where can I find my uncle’s death record?
QMy uncle, John Eric Milne, was killed in the Comet crash near Calcutta on 2 May 1953. Since he was born in Scotland (in June 1916), I expected his death to be registered in the minor records in the National Records of Scotland, but I cannot find it there. Where should I look to find his death certificate?
Monica Milne
AOne of the principles of civil registration is that events are registered in the district in which they occur, so deaths that take place abroad are generally not registered in the UK.
However, there are several exceptions and processes that have been put in place over time to allow some categories of overseas events to be recorded here. Mostly these relate to births, deaths and marriages involving personnel in the armed forces and those of British nationals resident overseas, where those events were (optionally) notified to the relevant British consul.
Another category allowing overseas deaths to be registered in the UK is those resulting from air accidents (from 1948) involving British-registered aircraft anywhere in the world, but the guidance for such registrations in Scotland does have an additional condition that states “where it appears that the deceased person was usually resident in Scotland” ( scotlandspeople.gov.uk/guides/ statutory-register-deaths).
The Ministry of Aviation report into the tragic crash of BOAC Comet G-ALYV (see tinyurl. com/CometReport) lists the passengers who died and records your uncle’s address as “Phillobari tea estate, Doom Dooma, Assam”, which may explain why you have found no record in the country of his birth.
Indexes of overseas deaths held by the General Register Office (GRO) in England/Wales are on Findmypast ( findmypast. co.uk), and your uncle’s death registration is included. It lists his death at Hooghly, India, and the reference is AIRD 1953 p31. You can use this to order a certificate via the GRO’s online ordering system, although it may not contain any new information.
The GRO has a useful guide to overseas registrations on its website at https://www.gro.gov. uk/gro/content/certificates/ images/CG6_1.pdf. Antony Marr