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Are there any official records of whether a body has been cremated or buried?
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Records will exist, but I'm not sure how accessible they are to Joe Public.
Everyone who dies is issued a death certificate.
Everyone cremated (I believe it wasn't legal in the UK until the early 1900s when a doctor cremated the remains of his dead child)* needs to have a form completed by 2 doctors and then submitted to the Registrar for Births, Deaths, and Marriages.
I have never completed one, but I assume there are also forms for Burial at Sea (I know this involves the Dept of Fisheries as they don't lket you bury in the fishing fields funnily enough).
The death cert does not specify method of disposal.
* from wiki: Cremation was declared legal in England and Wales when Dr. William Price was unsuccessfully prosecuted for cremating his son; formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act of 1902
Last edited by: Lygonos on Sat 8 Jun 13 at 09:40
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>> Everyone cremated (I believe it wasn't legal in the UK until the early 1900s when
>> a doctor cremated the remains of his dead child)* needs to have a form completed
>> by 2 doctors and then submitted to the Registrar for Births, Deaths, and Marriages.
The death certificate is a public document retained at what used to be St Catherine's House. Presumably a legitimate inquiry would be able to trace the certificate back to the local registrar whose records would show whether a certificate for cremation was issued.
Might then need legwork to locate the burial place or crematorium.
We were on the periphery of the Shipman inquiry as he certified the death of my maternal grandmother during his stint at Pontefract in 1972.
Investigation team were interested in where she was buried though in event they did not exhume. If family could not have supplied this info I'm pretty sure they'd have been round the local churches checking the lists.
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All crematoria and cemeteries keep individual records of cremations but there is no central government database.
"Deceased on line" has collected many of the cemetery and crematoria records to produce a searchable database. You can search for free but you have to pay to access full details.
www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch
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My wife has been trying to locate the burial/cremation location of her long lost aunt/uncle, complicated story.
She eventually managed to track down the date of their deaths, Rickmansworth area burial people (Council) were as helpful as can be and charged nothing, but unless she contacts every single Crem/Graveyard within a reasonable distance she's hit a stumbing block for the time being.
If you do find a way L'es at some point, i'd be interested to hear.
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Try the above database GB. Its quite extensive and new records are being added regularly Have used it quite a lot in my family tree research.
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>> Try the above database GB.
Tried it CGN, came up blank for both, but thanks for the suggestion always worth a try.
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>> www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch
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I tried a free search for the period 1860 to 1960 and it came up with 24 headstone collections, all of them in Scotland whereas the person I'm researching would have been in Norfolk or Suffolk. So none were relevant. If I paid, would it be likely to come up with anything better?
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No. The free search will show what records they have. You only have to pay to see the actual record in detail.
As they say
"We are currently digitising 2.6 million burial and cremation records to add to our database, from 16 burial and cremation authorities around the UK. 1.7 million further records have been digitised from another 18 authorities and are due to be added this year. And we are in serious talks with a further 94 authorities about bringing nearly 12 million more records to the website. Watch this space! Register on the website (for free) and leave the emails option box unticked to receive notification automatically when any new data is added."
Worth checking from time to time.
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Typed in my Dads details, who was cremated last year. No results found.
I think these records should be free to access anyway. Why should a private company make money on records that have been collated for free over centuries.
It's the same for war service records or census. If you want to go into any depth they're kept by private companies. They should be available to all for FREE. Ancestory seem to be the sole holders of British released public records. Why should I have to pay them to view government, public records that they have on war or death records for members of my family.
It should be government owned, and FREE.
You get a press release stating WW1 records have been released or census for 1901. You do a search and get put through to Ancestory. Why. And they're a U.S. owned company!
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The view that these online databases should be free is not really sustainable
If you want to research records physically such as census records you can visit the appropriate records office fee of charge. Similarly military records can be researched at Kew free of charge.
If you want someone to prepare a massive digital nationwide database of all old records at very considerable expense for the benefit of those researching their family trees then someone is going to have to pay for it. It seems quite unreasonable to expect the government and thus the taxpayer to pick up the tab.
Ancestry have done a brilliant job in allowing researchers to have access to millions of records at their fingertips. Compared to the cost of travelling all round the country to visit local record offices the cost of a subscription is reasonable.
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>> Typed in my Dads details, who was cremated last year. No results found.
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>> I think these records should be free to access anyway.
they are, you just have to go and hunt them out and collate them. Visit records offices, where they might charge you for a paper copy
Why should a private company
>> make money on records that have been collated for free over centuries.
they are not. The records have not been "collated" merely archived. The company archives them for you, provides you with easy from to search and then lets you do the printing at home.
Why shouldnt they charge for doing your legwork?
>> It's the same for war service records or census.
Not its not, its as I described. You want service service records you have to go to the regimental offices. Get them for free, you just have to do the legwork.
If you want to go into
>> any depth they're kept by private companies. They should be available to all for FREE.
>> Ancestory seem to be the sole holders of British released public records.
No they are not, they are held by multiple parties, Ancestry.com didn't buy them.
Why should I
>> have to pay them to view government, public records that they have on war or
>> death records for members of my family.
you dont have to
>> It should be government owned, and FREE.
It is, if you are prepared to search them out.
>>
>> You get a press release stating WW1 records have been released or census for 1901.
>> You do a search and get put through to Ancestory. Why. And they're a U.S.
>> owned company!
You are looking in the wrong place.
Please if you are going to rant , make it a worthy one.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 8 Jun 13 at 14:52
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Everything Zero said.
Also..
I assume that you've searched births & deaths in the appropriate local newspapers?
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Now, how is zero's post offensive. I suppose it's a bit blunt to some but offensive? He makes a good point, they've collected information and made it searchable, they don't own it.
Small point for military records if you are the nearest relative you can get the MoD to search for them. Zero's idea works for those relatives who are ex-army and know what regiment they were in. For those that aren't the MoD is a good place to stop, I think it's in the Veterans section.
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Searching the indexes has never been free, neither have copies of the certified entries.
In the old days when the indexes were stored at Somerset House I put in may hours searching the records. As I recall it cost 1/6d to search a 5-year period, and it was hard work, humping down massive leather-bound tomes and tuming through pages of vellum in Victorian handwriting.
Then having found what one believed might be the correct entry one filled in a form, paid I think £2, and waited for the certificate to arrive in the post.
It was possible to be a bit sneaky, and pay for 5 years worth but then search further years, only paying for the extra years if the search proved positive. But they had officials prowling around ready to "help" people.
Searching census records was I think free, but one had to pay for a photocopy. It took ages because the original records were written in fading pencil, and the enumerators had variable and often unreadable handwriting.
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This website is interesting if you're looking for information on celebrities.. American, of course, but there are plenty of non-Yanks in there.
It won't help unless your late mum is a major fillum star or something !
www.findagrave.com/
Stick a name in the search box and see what comes up........photo, short obit and place of burial with, sometimes, a pic of the grave.
Ted
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Records of cremations and burials - Lygonos
