Finding out cause of death
Hello,
I am fairly new to researching my family history, but I was wondering if there were ways of finding out the causes of death? Nothing seems to be mentioned on any records I am finding. Is this normal?
Thank you!
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Re: Finding out cause of death
This post was deleted by a board administrator on 13 Nov 2012 2:51PM GMT
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Re: Finding out cause of death
When you order the death certificate that will hold information regarding cause of death.
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Re: Finding out cause of death
Sometimes the cemetery records will indicate a cause of death.
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Re: Finding out cause of death
The most important thing to remember is that in the 19th century, and early 20th, knowledge and diagnosis was very primitive - very often the "cause" of death was just a symptom which could have been associated with a number of basic causes with better knowledge. The quotation is very apt - irrelevant because so often inaccurate due to lack of knowledge. For instance there are records of death from "dropsy" which simply means oedema - why? "Cough" - why? and "inanition" - failure to thrive - why?
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Re: Finding out cause of death
I got my 2 x Great Grandmother's death certificate and it indicated her cause of death was 'old age'! This was in 1903 and she was 87. Just shows how unscientific their diagnoses were back then.
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Re: Finding out cause of death
In 1903, life expectancy was approximately 52 years for women. 87 was very old. The cause of death seems accurate.
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Re: Finding out cause of death
Well I didn't realise or stop to think that life expectancy was that low. That puts a new light on the cause of death. Thanks!
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Re: Finding out cause of death
Just for information. In cases like this cause of death was sometimes recorded as "Natural causes" i.e. when you have passed the "expectation of life" limits it was not un-natural to die. Logical at least!
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