What hope have we got? Mistakes which will confound the family historian and others

Registering the death of my Great great great grandmother Ann Kerr nee Francis

 I can hear him saying it with a screwed up Scottish-Irish brawn.

I reckon he said “I dunna have a clue” and a version of that was written down by the Registrar.

 

At the Glasgow registry office on 3/6/1883, James Francis Kerr  (my great great grandfather) is in a spin. His mother Ann has just died of heart disease and bronchitis after years of suffering discomfort. He’s registering her death and they are asking all sorts of questions it standard to ask …..and it seems he is struggling with the info.

She has been a lifesaver to him after his first wife, Jessie, died in 1881, and his son died later that year. She'd helped with his two children whilst also caring for her daughter's only child, Annie Irvine.

Anne Francis was born in Tyrone, the daughter of Patrick Francis and Elizabeth Henderson. She had lost her husband, James Kerr, in… and reverted to her maiden name since her husband died as they do in Scottish lands.

If you only had the death certificate completed by James  to go on, you'd certainly put down Father Bernard and Mother Ann in your family tree and fail to get anywhere from there. Anne and her husband and children had left Ireland some time after the famine probably around 1855.

Irish records are so hard to find. With everyone's name, a saint's name, John, James, Elizabeth,  Ann etc you could imagine the possible combinations of marriages etc. Yes, James probably left Ireland as a wee boy. His grandfather had been in Glasgow with other uncles and aunts. Not sure if they connected often, or even if he connected with his sister and her estranged husband. 

Ann's Poor Law application - a godsend

For me, lucky, a relative once provided me with a poor law application, completed by Ann a couple of years before she died. On that application, she had detailed everything : her place of birth,  parents,  half sister’s details as well as  James' situation and the help he gave her, her daughter's whereabouts and estrangement from her husband, plus her little granddaughter's information as a little angel was living with her while her daughter Elizabeth worked as a wool winder and boarded elsewhere. A genealogist’s gift actually.

The real gift was that the Poor Law form with information given by Anne herself. Designed to collect possible assistance to a claimant  is as invasive as the modern day  Centrelink form. She gave her parents' names, place of birth and her half-sister's details. Her age on the Poor Law is 60, as at 29 January 1880 ie born 1820. This conflicts with the 1981 census where she is aged 64 makes her born 1817. James states her age as 59 on her death certificate in 1883.which makes her born 1824. James’ knowledge gets get worse with  his statement that  parents are Bernard - gardener and Ann Donoclue which is again contrary to Poor Law report.

Another funny thing about these records is that when my father first looked at Ann Kerr or Frances in the 1881 census records, which had just been released by the Latter-day Saints, people were getting into serious family history for the first time. Dad certainly didn't know about Scottish tenements and the close-up living people were expected to live with in Glasgow.

 Ann Frances had the little granddaughter six years old living with her and two male boarders. Since they were 25 and 23, they would more than likely have loved her as a mother figure land lady, washing, cleaning and cooking for them while they were out working. Many people boarded in the tenement apartments in those days, especially male labourers and Irish famine refugees like her daughter Elizabeth's husband who had lived with them in a previous census. He had boarded with them as a slater labourer newly arrived from Ireland.

My father interpreted the details on this newly released 1881 census as perhaps she was the lady of the night and that she had some young lovers!  He surely didn’t know about the life and times of these Irish refugees and other Scottish labourers. Years later we see the boarding situation in lots of census information. 

As I said at the beginning. I can hear him saying....

                                    “I dunna have a clue”

I've seen so many birth, deaths and marriages certificates which have been interpretations of the facts, real or made up names and details.

Was it a localised dialect problem, dealing with unknown and familiar names, a little bit of illiteracy on behalf of the officials and the informants or the officials saying just take a guess and we will leave it at that.Thank God he got her name right.

I can imagine James's problem just as easily with people who are asked to give information at short notice to a funeral home preparing the death certificate details.

When dealing with my aunt's recent death, the funeral home was most impressed when I pulled out an Ancestry app on my phone for the death certificate details. 

I can see that from dealing with her recent intestate will where we had to supply over 25 certificates that mistakes can be made by people in distress and on the spur of the moment without the relevant information at hand. No wonder the Registrar of the Supreme Court needed more and more information. Some husbands didn’t get their in-laws details correct,  forgot details in the excitement of registering a birth etc.  Sometimes it’s in-laws, uncles and aunts who are tasked with the job of providing the required data. They may not may not have known the wife's mother's maiden name, length of time in the country, details of past marriages and children etc!

The courts in administering this will cross checked these dodgy details by requiring over 25 certificates needed details of children, grandparents, siblings, dates of birth and death. Mind you it felt as though we had started a conspiracy to defraud my Aunt’s will 70-80 years ago. This all came about because her will was lost.

Anyhow here’s a few tips for dealing with the modern day Death Certificate in New South Wales

 Deceased Person's Details

1. Full name
2. Date of birth
3. Date of death
4. Place of death (hospital, home, etc.)
5. Usual residence
6. Occupation
7. Sex
8. Marital status
9. Spouse's name (if applicable)
10. Father's name
11. Mother's name (including maiden name)

12 Children of the deceased

13. Burial or Cremation details

14.informant details 

Additional information 

Citizenship, veteran status, name variations or aliases

Note: this information may  also be supplied to the Federal Government for Centrelink and Aged Care purposes.