Genealogy Chat

Just got a death certificate for what we hoped was an ancestor - but wasn't. A waste of £9.25? Not completely because we were amused by what we read:

1842 Halifax, Yorkshire. George Simpson died 28 Mar 1842 in the public highway, Kingscross, Skircoat.
Cause of Death: Visitation of God

Anyone got a better cause of death?

Yes i have seen that several times

see

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/visitation_of_god.html

Roy

Thanks for the link Roy. Explains it all, doesn't it. And we thought he'd had a 'road to Damascus' experience!

This site is useful as well
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishV.htm

Ken, PMSL :-D

Roy

Think these days they call it Natural Causes.

Those early certificates are interesting, as they tried to explain a reason for the death.
One of the ones I have here for the same year for a man of 74 gives the cause of death as
.... Decay of Nature...

By 1870 I have someone who's cause was Old age


Gwyn

Before 1837 when death certificates first started, you may still find a 'cause' in the burial registers.
I remember reading one in Hampshire Record Office for early 1800s when the clerk / vicar had given the explanation of death as being due to'...

.........drinking cold water when they were hot

Gwyn

I have one in my tree

Cause of death " Softening of the brain "

A long time ago I remember somone posting a cause of death.....

'Falling in a cart load of feathers'

:-D

Chris

An early cause of death was "planet" which meant that the person died as their astrological pattern was bad. Of course this is just another way of saying "dont know".

Planetstruck = Sideratio

Sideration

Sid`er*a"tion\, n. [L. sideratio.] The state of being siderated, or planet-struck; esp., blast in plants; also, a sudden and apparently causeless stroke of disease, as in apoplexy or paralysis. [Obs.] --Ray.

from http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishP.htm

and

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sideration

They simply put down what they saw due to a lack of knowledge


Roy :-D

I've got one cert for a relative who died of exhaustion. She was ninety-three. You'd think by that time she would have been able to have a rest. If you've got time to spare this site is very interesting. The vicar at the time recorded deaths in the parish of Westbury-On-Severn and also the causes of death. Fascinating reading. Unfortunately, the vicar who replaced him did not carry on the tradition.

www.rebus.demon.co.uk/wos_br.htm

Annie - I love that site, could read it all day. e.g.

"This day being Ash Wednesday and so very fit for such a deed - a base child of Hyett's seven months old, but wickedly left unbaptised, was buried by me with a certain form of prayer of mine own invention; but I will never bury another in such sort. Leonard Wilkinson"

Planet struck - never heard of that one before .........interesting that the ancients thought that the stars/planets caused someone's demise..........................-jl

:-D made me kaugh when reading causes of death luv it

A marriage certificate entry...

As an aside both of the fathers' occupations is shown on the certificate as "dead"

Just thinking out loud...isn't it time in the 21st century that the occupations of both parents are shown...it's a bit sexist isn't it?

:-)

The story had been passed down the family of an uncle who had chopped his own leg off. When we sent for the death certificate he had. It was an agricultural accident and he was chopping a tree with an axe and managed to somehow chop his own leg off. He bled to death.
My husbands great grandad died after a massive haemorrhage and on postmortem they found his false teeth in his stomach that he had swallowed about two years previously. Horrors.