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Death Index 2007 - 2013

Discussion in 'Latest news' started by Susan, Oct 12, 2015.

  1. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    I have just discovered that Ancestry now has Death Index records from 2007 to 2013. I have no idea when they were added, I just noticed new hints for my parents-in-law.

    But I would caution anyone using the new database that some of the information is incorrect. I have the death certificates of both in-laws; Ancestry's transcriptions give the wrong month of birth for my father-in-law and the wrong year of birth for my mother-in-law. Both certificates give the right dates so my brother-in-law gave the correct information when he registered their deaths.
    They did manage to transcribe the dates of death correctly though!
     
    • Thanks! Thanks! x 2
  2. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    Try as I might I cannot find any reference to Ancestry having Death records extending beyond 2007. I've even checked to see if two close family members who both died 2010 have hints showing, and neither has. However if Ancestry has Death records for the period you say, they are likely suffer the same irregularities as those that came before.

    Birth years are often calculated from age given (or estimated) at date of death and one should always allow +/- of a year for this reason. Birth months (or true birthdates) depend on the nature and extent of the Transcription and whether recorded with the death registration. They may even be assessed from their birth registration database, in which case the birth month is likely to be the first or last month of the quarter in which the person was born or in some cases when the birth was registered.

    The moral of the story I suppose is to seek out family BMD certificates( as you have done) or purchase copies, or just accept BMD databases as second best estimates. In the fullness of time and after further research many 'hit-and-miss' facts get sorted out anyway.
     
  3. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    The database is here http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=60630

    In the case of my father-in-law (died 2013) the transcription gives the dates of birth and death. The date of death is correct (day, month and year), the date of birth gets the day and year correct but not the month.
    My mother-in-law died in 2011 and her date of death is also correct. But her birth is given only as the year, and if going by her age it would seem as though she was born the year after her actual birth as for the pre-2007 indexes.

    The transcriptions also give the first part of the post code where the person died, but no volume or page number.
     
    • Thanks! Thanks! x 1
  4. Tony

    Tony LostCousins Member

    This collection appeared back in January and was greeted with suspicion even then. It's worth reading blogs about it such as this one, this and this.
     
    • Thanks! Thanks! x 2
  5. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    Thank you. I knew it must have been added at some point in the past but I missed it in the Recently Added section back in January.

    It has only taken Ancestry 9 months to show them in my hints!
     
  6. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    Thanks for that Susan and admit I had not heard about it and I don't believe Peter has mentioned it in any of his Newsletters, but could be wrong about that as my memory is not good. However now that I do know about it neither of the family members who died in 2010 and 2011 (I mistakenly said both were in 2010) were revealed in any of the searches I made (they were both from Birmingham) so was not overly impressed. Than I checked 'About this Database' and found this explanation which answers many questions.

    This collection is a compiled index that covers approximately 55% of the total deaths that occured (sic) in this time period. This index provides death details for people in England and Wales, specifically their name, gender, date of birth or age at death, date of death, and residence place at death. However, they do not include the General Register Office (GRO) reference information.

    And this source information - notice the latter 'Original Data' 'GreyPower Deceased Data'??

    Ancestry.com. England and Wales, Death Index, 2007-2013 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
    Original data: GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.

    I remain unimpressed and after reading the blogs supplied by Tony, I know why. (e.g Grey Power data is collected from Funeral Directors and Obituary Notices)
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2015
  7. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    That would explain why both my parents-in-law, my sister-in-law and my uncle-in-law are all there because they used the same funeral director with obituaries in the same newspapers.
    And that would explain the date of birth being wrong for my father-in-law - the funeral director had it incorrectly.
     
  8. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    You could also have got this information from a well-known newsletter....
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  9. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    I usually read the newletters from start to end, but missed that. I was ill earlier this year so maybe that was when it was in the newsletter.

    I'll have to go and re-read them all!
     
    • Good tip Good tip x 1
  10. Tony

    Tony LostCousins Member

    Doh, I missed that when I was searching for what I had saved about the source. It's this one.
     
  11. Susan

    Susan LostCousins Member

    I have just found it too by going back through all the newsletters one by one.
    It wasn't at the time I was ill, so that's not the excuse, but I don't remember anything from that newsletter and I would have remembered the birth certificate masterclass if I'd read that. Either I never got the email about it, or more likely it was buried in the middle of a lot of emails from the tropical fish forum I'm a member of and I deleted it by accident before reading the newsletter.

    I must take care when deleting a batch of emails from now on.
     

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