better eyes please...

[lozaras]

Can anyone confirm the second cause of death and the informant's surname please:
217
Thanks:)

If you click on the images it does get bigger lol!!

[ElizabethHerts]

The informant is Elizabeth Tims.

[lozaras]

I've discovered the second cause of death - I had thought the word strange but Rootsweb had it on a list of Civil war ailments:

Anasaica ( ANASCARCA) = Generalized edema or generalized dropsy

[ElizabethHerts]

Is it "Anasarca"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasarca

[ElizabethHerts]

Snap, Sarah!

[lozaras]

Thanks Elizabeth,

I just checked against the 1871 census page I have for him and there's a Toms family *hopeful icon*

hmm, Would a 15 year old be likely to register a death??

218

[Phoenix]

It looks like Tims rather than Toms.

[kiterunner]

Or possibly Sims.

[Phoenix]

I can't remember precise ages of informants, but certainly young grand-daughters have registered deaths in my family.

[lozaras]

Thanks Kate & Phoenix,

I've just been through all the Bigbury census sheets for 1871 and there is a better candidate on the page before William.

Also Elizabeth Toms, but aged 60.
I'm not too worried about the Tims/Toms difference because it wasn't Elizabeth that wrote on either the death cert or on the census form.

I don't think the first letter is an s because of the similarity with the T of 'The mark of..'

I wonder why his wife didn't inform the death though. Perhaps she was ill/infirm/too upset...

[ElizabethHerts]

I have numerous death certificates where the informant wasn't a member of the family, rather a neighbour or friend.

As the informant usually says "present at the death", is it a requirement that the informant be someone who was actually there? Perhaps this means that a relative couldn't be the informant if no family member was present.

[Olde Crone]

A 15 year old boy would have been out at work remember, so considered a man and took on this task to save the widow.

Where I live, even today, matters to do with death are seen as "men's business" and most women would not register a family death if there is a man around to do it. Women here (older women) do not go to funerals, either.

OC

[kiterunner]

I have numerous death certificates where the informant wasn't a member of the family, rather a neighbour or friend.

As the informant usually says "present at the death", is it a requirement that the informant be someone who was actually there? Perhaps this means that a relative couldn't be the informant if no family member was present.


1836 Civil Registration Act, see para XXV:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1836Act.htm