I am trying to trace the details of death for one of my relatives who emigrated from Chesterfield, Derbyshire to South Rhodesia in 1953. She was Hilda Abthorpe, born 1909 as Hilda Burns, but i have no clue about date of death other than she died out there :( Her husband, Francis Abthorpe and daughter Anne Abthorpe later returned to Nottingham.

Any information on Hilda would be greatly appreciated :)

thanks

Zoe

Assuming you have the name spelt correctly there is no one of that name in the Indexes to the Death Registers of Zimbabwe up to 1977. I assume you mean Southern Rhodesia when you say "South" Rhodesia, are you sure it was not Northern Rhodesia?

Hiya

thanks so much for the reply. From the information i was told it was definitely Southern Rhodesia. But it could well have been after 1977 sadly :(

The daughter Anne Abthorpe married in S Rhodesia to someone with the surname Bowen and they had two daughters.
Would you be able to find the husbands name on those registers and maybe i can trace him as he now, apparently, lived in Nottingham.

Also the daughters, i know one is called Linda Jane Bowen as she arranged for the funeral of her mum Anne Bowen back in Nottingham, but i assume she was born over in S Rhodesia as there is no trace of her on the UK registers. If you could find anything on her that would be such a help as well, and the name of the other daughter, which we think might be Caroline Bowen, but that's not definite :(

thanks for anything you can find

Zoe

Trying to get any records from Zimbabwe is about as easy as finding hens' teeth. The only records online are the Death Registers. The Index is fairly straight forward but connecting to the actual Register is a marathon task - however, as said, there is no one of the name Abthorpe mentioned in the Index so no deaths could be traced. If you want to try go to Family Search and look under Africa, Zimbabwe. Good luck.

Thanks :) I'll give that a try :)

although last time i looked for hens teeth i failed! lol

thanks again :D

Zoe

I found by accident that the South African Genealogical Society has a project to try and record cemeteries (particularly as these were often unregistered on farms) of South Africans. If you google their page and look under "Projects" you will find cemeteries, with maps of South Africa, at the bottom of the maps there is a world map, click on that and you will find Zimbabwe amongst others. The list is arranged by the name of the town and then under family names, it might be worth trawling through although it is far from complete. Although it says "South Africans" there are obviously others, I think someone has just photographed anything they could, anyway I found a picture of a tombstone for someone I knew who, far from being South African, was a German-Jewish refugee from Hitler. Tombstone for both him and his wife. You might also try the Zimbabwe phone book. There seem to be just five Bowens in it - but it might be worth contacting. Until recently the postal service in Zimbabwe was almost non-existent, internal telephones as bad but international calls better. In this case a phone call might be better than writing, although writing does give a chance for the person to consider whether they want to reply or not. Finally - don't forget that almost any white who can has left the country. I understand that the white population is almost entirely made up of those who simply have nowhere to go. I heard somewhere that the white population is down to about 20,000 - don't know if that is correct but would not be surprised if it were. Hope this helps. Good luck anyway.