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Buried alive!

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Greaves
Posts: 19
Joined: 27 Nov 2020, 10:53

Buried alive!

Post by Greaves »

I have just received a digital scan of the entry from the burial register of the burial of one of my distant relatives. Everything is right with the entry: the name of the deceased, his age and his address. According to the burial register he was buried on 22 August 1919.

His death certificate agrees with all the above details relating to his death, namely his name, age and address. The only problem is that the death certificate gives his date of death as 19 September 1919. Which would suggest that he was buried whilst still alive.

All joking aside, I don’t know how to explain this discrepancy. I have seen baptism records in the past that pre-date birth certificates, but that can usually be explained by parents wanting to register a birth a few weeks or months late to cover up illegitimacy issues. But I have always thought that a valid death certificate was a legal requirement for a burial. So I don’t see how the date on the register can be correct.

Any ideas?
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AdrianBruce
Posts: 358
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 18:57
Location: South Cheshire

Re: Buried alive!

Post by AdrianBruce »

Greaves wrote: 14 Jul 2021, 10:11 ... According to the burial register he was buried on 22 August 1919. ...
Well, surely one must be wrong - the question is - which?

I assume that the death certificate is right - it just seems to feel more likely that way round. Therefore, I'd guess that the correct date of burial should be 22 September 1919. Bear in mind that burial registers are often filled in after the event so an error there is perhaps more likely.

Have you seen the original register? (I assume that we're not talking about a transcript because that's another source of error.) In particular, are there adjacent entries that might suggest how the entries were made - one-offs are more likely to be in error, perhaps? If the adjacent burial entries were out of date sequence that would be a real smoking gun, but that's perhaps too easy or too obvious...

PS - I'm not totally sure that a valid death certificate is needed for burial - there has to be some documented authority but I'm not sure it has to be the final death certificate itself.
Adrian Bruce
Greaves
Posts: 19
Joined: 27 Nov 2020, 10:53

Re: Buried alive!

Post by Greaves »

Yes, I have scans of both original documents, so not a transcription error. I suspect that you are right on 22 September for the burial, especially as the burial before was in June 1919 and the subsequent burial in October 1919. Churchyards were rarely used by 1919, most people ending up in civil burial grounds.

It just seems to be such a glaring mistake. Absent minded vicar?
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AdrianBruce
Posts: 358
Joined: 14 Jun 2020, 18:57
Location: South Cheshire

Re: Buried alive!

Post by AdrianBruce »

Greaves wrote: 14 Jul 2021, 14:52... It just seems to be such a glaring mistake. Absent minded vicar?
Probably something slipped the memory. Of course, it isn't a glaring error if all you can do is read the register, because August fits quite happily between June 1919 and October 1919. Who knows how the error happened... My suspicion is that these registers were often completed after the event, so it might have been October (say) by the time the priest(?) came to fill in the page - maybe he had a little sheaf of paper slips that had been in the back of the drawer, and the ink had got smudged so 22/9/19 came to look like 22/8/19. Maybe he'd just written down 22nd for the date, thinking he'd be writing it up later that month - but then, when he did get round to it, he's forgotten which month?

I don't think I've ever seen that before, so thanks for the episode.

PS - the use of civil / municipal cemeteries rather than church graveyards very much depends on where you are. My Mum's family lived in a village and used the local CofE churchyard. I suspect non-conformists may have gone a couple of miles down the road to the municipal cemetery in the nearest town - apart from the Baptists who seem to have gone a couple of miles in the opposite direction to a Baptist chapel with a graveyard.

PPS - In my experience, not many people of our ilk seem to refer to "churchyards", so I noticed you using that word. ;) My mother, however, always referred to going up to the "The Churchyard"...
Adrian Bruce
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