What is shown on a death certificate

The heading of the death certificate states the year the event took place in, the registration district, the sub-district if applicable, and the name of the county. This column shows the deceased's date and place of death.

When looking at their place of death, please note that this is where they died, and may not necessarily be their home address. The name and surname of the deceased is shown in this column, as stated by the informer of the death. If you are looking for a person such as Nora Alice, and cannot find their entry in the index, it is best to look for Alice Nora in case she changed her name.

If you find that the death is registered as male or female, there is a high possibility that the deceased was a child and had not lived long enough to be named.

Funeral directors and doctors

Age at death is stated in this column. After their full date of birth is recorded, but this could also be inaccurate.


  1. Information you can find in a Death Record;
  2. INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEATH CERTIFICATE.
  3. state of florida vehicle search?

For this reason, it is best to search for a few years either side when searching for their birth registration. It is also possible that the deceased may have lied about their age to everyone, even their close family, for years, or did not know themselves how old they actually were. A person could have lied to get married if they were under the age of 21 and wanted to marry without their parents consent, and kept up the lie throughout their life.

If there was a big age gap between husband and wife, the man or woman may have lied about their age to reduce this gap in other people's eyes. Should the deceased be a man, the certificate usually stated their occupation, but this would be their last known occupation, which may not have been their lifelong occupation.

Information given on death certificates | Civil registration records | Birmingham City Council

If their stated occupation differs from what you know to be their previous occupation, it may mean that their ill health forced them to change their occupation towards the end of their life. If the deceased was a single woman, her occupation was sometimes stated, but it may simply state that she was the daughter of her father and list his occupation. Should the deceased be a married or widowed woman, it invariably stated she was either the wife or widow of her husband and listed his occupation, as is shown in the example further down this page. Since , the women's occupation has begun to be recorded in more detail.

Children were listed on a death certificate as the son or daughter of their father, if known, and list his occupation. Since , more details are added, such as the mother's name. A death certificate shows cause of death, and this can be very interesting, especially if it was not because of natural causes. Deaths were usually registered within two or three days, but if it was unexplained and an inquest was held or a post-mortem was carried out, the death registration would be somewhat later.

Before , some causes of death were followed by the word certified, which meant that a doctor had certified the cause of death. Over the next 24 hours an acute myocardial infarction is confirmed.

Cause-of-death certification: Not as easy as it seems

Heart failure develops but improves with medical management. The patient then experiences a pulmonary embolus, confirmed by ventilation-perfusion lung scan and blood gases; over the next 2 hours she becomes unresponsive and dies. Question: What should be written on the death certificate as the immediate and underlying cause of death? Answer : pulmonary embolus due to acute myocardial infarction due to atherosclerotic heart disease. Question: What should be listed as conditions contributing to death but not directly causing death?

Answer : type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. A year-old woman has left hemiparesis from a stroke 2 years earlier.

Recent content

She has been unable to care for herself and has lived in a nursing home. She has had an indwelling urinary catheter for the past 6 months. Because of fever, increased leukocyte count, and pyuria, she is admitted to the hospital and started on 2 antibiotics. Two days later, the blood culture result is positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa resistant to the antibiotics being administered.

Despite a change of antibiotics, hypotension ensues and the patient dies on hospital day 4. Answer: P aeruginosa sepsis, due to a urinary tract infection due to an indwelling catheter, due to left hemiparesis, due to an old cerebral infarction. Question: What should be listed as conditions that contributed to the death but that did not directly cause the death?

Answer : nothing. If you were correct on both cases, congratulations. If you were not, this article offers basic advice that will help you provide accurate medical information on death certificates.

Don’t Miss Out On Important Genealogy Clues on Your Ancestor’s Death Certificate

Death certificates are important official records used for personal, legal, and public health purposes, yet they are frequently filled out inaccurately. The entries in the National Probate calendars see probatesearch. The calendars from right up until record so much information that, for family history purposes, they can virtually be used to replace a death certificate. However, not everyone left a will; to put it in perspective, , deaths were registered in England and Wales in the year , but the probate calendars record the wills and administrations of just 42, people who died that year, representing only 8 per cent of the total number of deaths, and this figure includes a significant number of people who died in other parts of the UK or overseas.

For many researchers, tracing a record of a burial is as important as finding the death certificate, particularly if it can lead to the discovery of a gravestone.

Records of burials and monumental inscriptions can also be used as a tool to identify death records. Unlike their English and Welsh equivalents, Scottish death certificates represent a significant genealogical source. These were all dropped in , with the exception of the place of burial, which survived until Get your hands on our Family History Notebook, a handy resource to help you keep track of your findings with charts and research logs. We use cookies to improve your experience of this website by remembering your usage preferences, collecting statistics, and targeting relevant content.

News Southampton's dark history told at new heritage experience 31 October

Article metrics