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Got a puzzle here!

  • Thread starter Neville Philpott
  • Start date
N

Neville Philpott

Guest
After some ten years of searching for my long deceased brother i have found his resting place in
Heath Lane cemetery, West Bromwich.

The staff at Newton Road crematorium, where all the West Bromwich records are kept, were very
helpful and through them i was able to establish his age at death, where he was collected from
for the funeral and the location of the grave.

The puzzle is, although he was born, died and is buried at West Bromwich the local register office
cannot locate a death certificate in his name, although he only lived for 15 days.

Not sure where to go from here, but there must be a death certificate surely....
 
Would a death certificate not be needed in order to arrange a burial/cremation?

Are you certain he died in West Bromwich? Is there a chance his death was registered elsewhere.

What year did he die and what was his name.
Williamjukes
 
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Sometimes, as in the case of my half brother if he died in the hospital where he was born, both the Birth and Death can be recorded on the same certificate. Although they are both reg' on both birth and Death records with the same number , Just a thought.
 
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Henry John Marsters Philpott, born 23rd February 1949 West Bromwich. GRO reference 9b 1329.

Died at age 15 days, approx 10th March at a West Bromwich address and buried at Heath Lane cemetery on 15th March.

Sandwell register office are unable to locate a death certificate, any ideas anyone.

After searching for over ten years would have thought that this bit of the job would be just a formality but apparently not.

thanks Neville...
 
Something I've never thought off before : if a child dies before his/her birth is registered, is a birth certificate issued posthumously??? And if not, would this have any affect upon a consequent death-certificate? Does anyone know?
 
Do you have the birth certificate, if so when was it issued? Before or after the death?
 
Johno and Lloyd that was what happened here with my half brother... he died before he was reg'd as being born, so both are on the same bit of paper... however he is in both indexes, Birth and Death.
In the past (not sure about now), if a child died before it was 12 hours old they were often not registered, or even buried at all... My half brother I was told just made it past the 12 hour mark ...

Sometimes, as in the case of my half brother if he died in the hospital where he was born, both the Birth and Death can be recorded on the same certificate. Although they are both reg' on both birth and Death records with the same number , Just a thought.
Click to expand...
 
Lloyd said:
Do you have the birth certificate, if so when was it issued? Before or after the death?
Click to expand...

Hi Lloyd, I do have the birth certificate, it shows the registered date as 14th March, which is the day before his burial.

I would have expected that the birth and death certificates would have been produced at the same time.

Neville...
 
So after his death. I think we can assume that whoever registered the birth would also have informed the registrar of the death so presumably a death certificate (if one was registered) was issued on the same day. That should help the West Brom registry office tracing whether or not one was actually issued.
 
You would have thought so wouldn't you, i wonder then why the West Brom registry office have supposedly searched the records without success.

There must be a logical explanation if only i could think of one.
 
All I can guess is - when (whoever registered the birth) said he had died, the office personnel said it wasn't necessary (if, for instance the infant never left the hospital, or wasn't expected to last long) to register the death, even if that was incorrect. It depends on what the rules at the time were.
 
Have you been able to establish if a Death Certificate would need to be produced and viewed - in order to arrange the funeral.

I did check on Ancestry for the first 2 quarters of 1949 for a death registration under the name of Philpott (and other variations) and Marsters (plus other variations) but nothing registered in any location.
Williamjukes
 
I think only the certificate issued by the doctor who confirms death is required by the undertaker.

I too have checked registrations, even trawling through 'Henry' and 'John' for Staffordshire that year in case a bad mistranscription had occurred, but nothing obvious showed up. Glad others are checking as well, in case I did miss it.

The only other place I would want to look is the actual death certificate book, the pages used on the day the birth certificate was issued (but only the registry staff in the relevant office can do that) failing which I would have to assume no certificate was ever issued.
 
This particular infant lived for 15 days and died at his Mothers home address, which does rule out some of the previous suggestions.

I still cannot understand how a burial can take place without a certificate and am going to ask West Bromwich to look again at their records.
 
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Looking to bring this thread up to date.

I now believe that a death certificate may have been issued but with the child being unnamed.

How can i trace unnamed death entries in the official records, would they be listed under 'u'?
 
Hello Bren,

I don't think so, have checked all named Philpott deaths for the period in question without success.

Can only assume registration was as unnamed.

Neville..



bren said:
He could be registered as Male Philpott as is usual in birth register


bren
Click to expand...
 
For anyone who was interested in following this saga of the missing death certificate, the mystery has now been solved.

My brothers death was registered in a different name to his birth, and just to add yet another twist, his death certificate was prepared
before his birth certificate. Simple really, but just goes to show how sometimes things can appear straightforward but end up becoming very confusing....
 
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