Family History Class Notes – Death Certificates, Australia – 101

In previous classes, we looked at birth and marriage certificates in Australia. We also used our own birth certificate to gather clues to assist us to step back to another generation in our family history.

However, birth certificates seldom help with finding our ancestors’ death certificates. Occasionally if one of the parents is deceased at the registration of that birth the fact may be noted on a certificate but not always.

Death certificates are probably the most difficult of the three events of birth, death or marriage to track down. The information on them may be the most unreliable too. The person whose death is being registered may not be known by the informant or little more than their name. The fact that they were married or had children or the names of their parents may not be known.

There is no central place for the registration of deaths in Australia. Each state has a Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in their capital city. Until recently the deceased’s family and friends were responsible to register a death.

Now the undertaker needs to supply information on a death to obtain a license to bury or cremate. Once people were able to bury where they wished, but after the beginning of registration of deaths, all burials were to take place in a designated burial ground. The friends and family had a specific time to register a death with the Registrar’s Office-usually at the local Court House, but for various reasons, this didn’t always happen.

In recent years each of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and marriages in each state has built a website where you can search for free their indexes. These can be found at:-

 

https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/

https://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/

https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/bdm/home

https://www.sa.gov.au

https://bdm.justice.wa.gov.au

https://nt.gov.au/law/bdm/search

However, just as there are a hundred years for births and a fifty-year rule for marriage certificates, there is a thirty-year rule for deaths. That means you cannot get a death certificate for a death that took place less than thirty years ago.

Be aware that each of these indexes in each state is a little different. For example in the death index for Queensland, the actual date of death is given but in New South Wales only the year of registration is given.

On each of these indexes, the name of the deceased, date or year of registration of the death is given as well as the parent’s names if known.

Of all the certificates, the information on a death certificate is possible the most unreliable. The informant of the death may have known very little about the deceased particularly the names of parents, spouse or children. For this reason alone it is important to get further documents that may confirm the information given on a death certificate.

Just as you may not be able to find a reference in the indexes for a birth or marriage you may not be able to find a death registration.  Sometimes this is because you are not using the spelling of the names used at the registration. However, the death may not have been registered in the first place.

Remember you are looking for information for the death event. There are many records that give you information on a person’s death. Some of these you may be able to get even if the death took place less than thirty years ago. You may find a death certificate; death certificate transcription; Church burial register; Church/Civil burial memorabilia; church/civic funeral order of service; photographs and/or video of funeral/burial service; photographs and/or video of interment of ashes; undertakers records/municipal burial records; newspaper death/funeral notice; obituary; newspaper memorial notice; memorial cards; memorial plaque or headstone; inquest report; original and /or copy of will and testament; probate/letters of administration notice/ family register in bible or prayer book; letters and diaries/ oral and personal recollections by family and friends.

This is not a definitive list and you could possibly think of others. You will not be able to get all these records for each death. They are just a guide.

I have used the above list to make myself a datasheet to put in my files on each individual.

 

A pdf download of the data-sheet can be found on this website under the Resources and Examples Tab.

Many of these records you may find in family papers. I have found a number of these for my mother’s death and have entered them into my data sheet below.

If someone shares these documents with you, please record them as the source of the document with their name, date, and address, on your document copy. Back or front depending on your skills and preference. Just because you now have a copy, please remember this is not your document to scan and put up on the Internet.

It is good family history manners even if you create your own document, such as a transcription, which is quite legal, you should get permission from the original owner to share the information and give them credit for originally sharing with you. Later down the track, they are then likely to share more with you, and you will feel comfortable sharing with them, as you will expect the same courtesy.

Now just a word of warning about using indexes. They do not have the full information a certificate has. If you only use an index make sure it is the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages website. Transcription errors often creep into copies, which can put your research away off track.

Continue to be very careful and diligent in your research.

 

 

 

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Family History Class Notes – Birth Certificates, Australia- 101

In our last class, I invited you to look at your own birth certificate for information concerning your parents. You might think your next step would be to get your parent’s birth certificates using the information stated on your own certificate. This would be a reasonable step towards your own ancestral research plan. However, you might be shocked to know you cannot get another person’s birth certificate unless they were born over a hundred years ago. This is to do with people’s right to privacy and also to stop others using these documents for fraudulent activities such as identity theft.

If your parents are still living, ask them if they have a full copy of their birth certificate and would they be willing for you to make a transcription of the information on it. If they do not have a copy, encourage them to apply for one, even if you actually pay for it. They are the only ones legally able to apply for their own birth certificate. If they are deceased there may be a copy in their private papers. Find out who in the family might have these papers. They may allow you to sight and make a transcription of the document. Even if the person is now deceased you still cannot get a birth certificate unless they were born over 100 years ago.

If your parents, grandparents or another ancestor was born over one hundred years ago in Australia you may find their birth reference number, full name, names of parents and place of birth in the online government indexes.

In Australia, there is no central place for births, marriages, and deaths for the whole of the country. Each state has its own Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriage in its capital city.

In recent years each Registrar’s office has built a website where you can search the indexes to their historical documents for births over a hundred years ago.  These indexes are free to consult. The large subscription sites use ways to link and use these free sites. They do not have access to any more information than is on the free government websites.

Be aware each of these indexes is a little different. For example- In the Queensland Index for births, which took place over a hundred years ago, it actually gives the date of birth, while on the New South Wales Index it only gives the year of registration. This is usually the year of birth but not always.

Here are the websites for the offices responsible for the registration of births in each state.

https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/

https://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/

https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/bdm/home

https://www.sa.gov.au

https://bdm.justice.wa.gov.au

https://nt.gov.au/law/bdm/search

Please be aware until recent times the parents were responsible for making sure a birth was registered. Sometimes they just didn’t get around to it. In that case, you may not find the birth reference you were looking for. Another reason you may not find it is that you are not using the spelling which was used at the registration, or the child was registered without a Christian name, so it may be registered as an unnamed male or female.

Now, what if, no-one in the family has the certificate or is not willing to share, or you cannot find in in the index, even if it over a hundred years, and should be registered. No, your research does not need to stop. There are ways around this hurdle.

Remember you are looking for information concerning an ‘event’ in the person’s life. There are many records that give information on a person’s birth or leading up to the event. Some of these you may be able to get even if the birth is not one hundred years ago. For example, the birth date may be on a headstone or plaque in a public cemetery or on a funeral service sheet.

Remember one document is not ‘definite proof’ of an event. You can only get a reasonable proof by a range of documents all pointing to the same conclusion.

Be aware your family tree not only includes your ancestors but your descendants too. This means you should be collecting births for them also. However, it is illegal to disseminate private information on living persons without their consent. Just hold this information in your private records file.

Here is a list of records you may use to build a reasonable case for the birth information on an ancestor or descendant.

Full (Certified) Birth Certificate; Birth Certificate Transcription; Church Baptism Certificate; Church Baptism Register Entry; Christening Memorabilia (mugs, spoons, etc); Family Register in Bible; Newspaper Notice of Birth; Adoption Papers; Newspaper Notice of Adoption; Family Letters & Diaries; Passport; Citizenship Documents; Baby Shower Memorabilia; Ultra-Sound Film; Photographs and/or video of Birth/Hospital Visit; Hospital Crib Tag and/or Leg/Arm Bands; Oral Stories/Personal Recollections of Birth from Family & Friends; Headstone or Cemetery Plaque and Funeral Order of Service.

This list is not definitive and you could possibly think of more. You will not be able to get all these records for any one person. They are just a guide.

I have used this list to make myself a Data Sheet to put in my files on an individual person.

[A pdf download of this Data Sheet can be found on this website under the Resources and Examples Tab.]

Many of these records you may find in family papers and memorabilia. If someone shares these with you please record them as the source of the document with their name, date, and address on your copy. Back or front depending on your skills and preference. Just because you now have a copy, please remember this is not your document to scan and put up on the Internet.

This is the Data Sheet filled in for my mother, Margaret Nola Baxter. This is one way I organize and track my progress with my family history research.

It is good family history manners even if you create your own document, such as a transcription, which is quite legal, you should get permission from the original owner to share the information and give them credit for originally sharing with you. Later down the track, they are then likely to share more with you, and you will feel comfortable sharing with them, as you will expect the same courtesy in return.

Family Heirloom – The Chain-mail Purse

My mother, the fifth child and fourth daughter of Arthur and Harriet May Baxter was to be named ‘Margaret Alice’ in honour of her two grandmothers. Arthur’s mother had been, ‘Margaret Jane’, born 1858 to Gilbert and Ann Kennedy, and Harriet May’s mother ‘Alice’, was born in 1854 to Robert and Margaretta Sherwood.

 However, when my grandmother, Harriet May went to register the birth of her new daughter, at the Murwillumbah Court House, she gave her the name ‘Margaret Nola’.

 Having grown up with the story of how my mother was to be named for her grandmothers, but only received the name of her paternal grandmother, I asked my grandmother, Harriet May, why the change?

 She explained to me that she and Arthur had originally decided to name their fourth daughter after the grandmothers because although by this time Arthur’s mother had eight granddaughters, only one had been given the first name ‘Margaret’ and that granddaughter had died in an accident as an infant. One other had Margaret, as a second name.

 Harriet May’s mother had eleven granddaughters by this time. Only one had been given the name ‘Alice’, but it was used as a second name. The maternal grandmother wanted the ‘new’ grandchild given the name ‘Alice’ as an only name, like herself. However, my grandparents had privately decided to use it as a second name.

 My grandmother called at the Murwillumbah Court house to register her new daughter, shortly after being released from the Newbrae Private Hospital. However, when it came to the actual registration my grandmother used ‘Nola’ as the second name. My grandmother had two nieces, one on each side of the family named ‘Nola’, and she liked the name.

 I asked my grandmother, Harriet May, again, why the change?

Her reply was that she and Arthur had been engaged shortly before her seventeenth birthday, but her mother was set against the marriage and would never give her consent and blessings.

Arthur and Harriet May were married a week after ‘Harriet May’s’ twenty-first birthday.

Although her relationship with her mother was quite cordial in most ways, she could never quite forgive her for withholding consent and blessings for the marriage.

 My mother first met her grandparents in 1928 when she, her mother and baby sister, Joan, travelled by train to Sydney for Harriet May’s parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary at Thirroul, on the South Coast of New South Wales.

Afterward, they went to Picton to visit Arthur’s parents, who had also celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary earlier in the year.

Left: My mother ‘Margaret Nola’ (left) with her Aunt Milly and cousins Phyllis and Heather, in the front garden of her paternal grandparent’s home, at Picton, October 1928

 

It was on this visit that Arthur’s mother,’ Margaret Jane’ gave her namesake granddaughter, ‘Margaret Nola’ a gift, in honour of the name. This was a small Victorian chain-mail purse, ‘to take her pennies to church in’. It was always one of my most mother’s prized possessions, and my sisters and I, when children, were never allowed to use it to carry our pennies to Sunday School and Church.

My mother didn’t know if her grandmother Margaret, had purchased it as a special gift, or if it had originally been her prized possession as a child. I have not been able to solve this question either.

 By the way, there are thirty grandchildren on my maternal side. Seventeen are female and not one was named ‘Margaret’ or ‘Alice’, which was most unusual for the time.

PS: The ‘sixpences’ in the above photograph were used by my family for many years as the ‘pudding’ money at Christmas. They were kept in a little cigarette tin and wrapped in the calico cloth used to make the ‘boiled’ pudding for Christmas Day.

Oh! The funny stories and laughter those coins evoke each time I look at them.

 

 

Lost in the City of London-the Baxter Family

My mother, Margaret Nola Baxter was born in Murwillumbah in 1924, the fifth child of Arthur and Harriet Baxter (nee Bell). My grandparents had married at Thirroul in 1913 and came to settle at Kunghur, on the South Arm of the Tweed River soon afterward.

 Arthur Baxter had been born at Picton in 1888, the sixth child of James and Margaret Baxter (nee Kennedy). He had been raised on a farm at High Range in the Picton District. His bride, Harriet May Bell had also been born in Picton, where her father was a blacksmith.

 Arthur’s father, James Baxter, had been born at Spring Creek near Picton in 1851, the eldest son of Thomas and Mary Baxter (nee Mather), who had married at The Oaks, on 30 December 1850.

Thomas Baxter arrived in Sydney on board the Roslin Castle on 15 September 1834. He was a native of London and had been convicted of ‘pickpocketing’ on 2 September 1833, and sentenced to seven years transportation. In the 1837 Convict Muster, he is listed as working for George Brown at Camden. He remained in the Camden area after the completion of his sentence and received his Certificate of Freedom in 1840.

 Thomas and Mary had nine children: James, 1851; Elizabeth, 1853; Mary, 1856-1860; George Thomas, 1858; John, 1860; Charles, 1862-1863; Mary Ellen, 1864; Robert, 1866 and Thomas Henry, 1869. All were born and raised in the Picton area.

 Thomas and Mary Baxter later retired to Sydney where Thomas died on 5 February 1889. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mark’s, Church of England at Picton. His wife Mary who died in 1907 is also buried there.

 On Thomas Baxter’s death certificate it is stated that his father ‘was believed to George Baxter, a bookbinder of London’.

London has always been a very big city, and Thomas Baxter is not an unusual name, so for a while, it seemed an impossible task to find where to start.

 Searching for new clues I followed up on Thomas Baxter’s convict records and found that on 16 February 1832 in the proceedings of the ‘Old Bailey’ he was convicted of larceny and was imprisoned for one month.

 I then used a map of London to identify the parishes around where he was apprehended for his crimes. Having made a list of these parishes I then consulted the International Genealogical Index (1978 and 1988). This is a research aid prepared by the Latter-Day Saints Genealogical Department. I then made a list of ‘Thomas Baxters baptized about 1812 to 1816, which were found in the parishes of interest. I also noted the marriages of all ‘George Baxter’s’ in the area 1800-1815 who might be Thomas’s father.

 I then consulted the catalogue of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and ordered the microfilms of the parish registers of all the parishes in London which were of interest to my research. These were sent to the Grafton Family History Centre where I could visit and read the films.

 After searching through several sets of films I found the baptism of ‘Thomas George Baxter’ at St Botolph Without Aldersgate on 17 April 1816, the son of George and Mary Brayne Baxter. The father, George’s occupation was given as ‘bookbinder’. I was able to find the baptisms of all the other children of George and Mary Brayne Baxter. I was also able to locate the marriage of George Baxter and Mary Brayne Kington at Christ Church Greyfriars Newgate, London on 13 August 1809.

 All this was before the internet and the advantages of researching on-line. However, as the new technology became available I used it where I could to advance my family history. When the scanned images of the London parish registers were available I downloaded and printed the baptism and marriage entries, which I added to my folder system for quick reference.

 By using the clues suggested by the family naming pattern revealed by the baptisms I was able to ‘guess’ that ‘George Baxter’s father’ was probably a ‘James Baxter that had possibly married a Miss/ Mrs. Dixson. The on-line search facilities enabled me to find a ‘James Baxter who married Elizabeth Dixon in London in 1766. I was able to find a number of children born to this couple as being baptized in London.

 I was then able to find a reference to a Will of ‘James Baxter, a Claspmaker in London’, on the National Archives website in England, which I was able to purchase and download immediately. This gave not only a great deal of information about his business but also confirmed the names of his wife and eight children.

 A further search of the National Archives website led me to Court cases in 1810 involving George and Mary Bayne Baxter, as well as Mary’s half-siblings, stepbrother and mother. My present challenge is to sort this out and continue to research the lives of these ancestors.