Prior
to the regulations instituted by Parliament for the civil
registration
of births, marriages and deaths in Britain, in 1837, the main alternative to an
actual death certificate was a parish burial record. In most cases only the
name of the deceased and the date of his burial were entered. Generally one
could assume that the death was only up to a few days prior to the burial but
rarely was that event recorded directly.
Occasionally
a vicar might make notes in the registers which might shed light on the manner
of death or the relationship of the deceased to surviving family members. Such
comments can add an important piece of information about the individual but
they almost never make it into an index.
Unfortunately,
not all vicars chose to make notes so records may not be complete in an area
over several decades. Rev. Duke Yonge (1750-1823), of Cornwood parish, was very
diligent in leaving comments in the registers. He served as the Cornwood vicar from
July 1793 until his own death in December 1823. For over 20 years, we have a
wonderful record of the causes of death.
In
the burial registers of the four parishes in Southwest Devon I look after, as
an Online Parish Clerk, only a small
percentage of entries have notes about the deceased persons:
·
Cornwood
– 702 of 4,616 entries (15%) between 1685 and 1993;
·
Harford
– 153 of 639 entries (24%) between 1708 and 1933;
·
Plympton
St. Mary – 1,778 of 15,963 (11%) between 1603 and 1963;
·
Plympton
St. Maurice – 1,699 of 4,897 entries (35%) between 1616 and 1958
All
of the registers for my parishes have been transcribed and the information put
into spreadsheets; so I can sort and look at various items to see whether
trends are present (did deaths increase in number or decrease during any
period), whether certain diseases were present at various times, what family
connections there might have been or whether other events affecting the
populace occurred.
Families
Most
of the entries have to do with who the deceased was related to. Many notes
reference that those buried were the son of, daughter of, wife of or husband of
a surviving member of the family. That is exceedingly helpful when trying to
reconstruct families whose members had similar names to those of other
families. It was not unusual for children to be named after their parents or
grandparents so children often had the same names as their cousins.
Notes
might be made of the individual’s occupation or employer which, again, is
useful in determining to which family they belonged.
Those
with more affiliations to nobility or senior members of the community were
particularly noted. See my blog post titled, Nobility
and Celebrity as recorded in the parish register, published 8 October 2013
Diseases
Of
the diseases and epidemics that hit the area, cholera occurred in two main episodes
in Plympton St. Mary and Plympton St. Maurice – July-September 1832 and
June-July 1849. Few deaths occurred in Cornwood during those two periods, and
no cause of death was recorded, so it appears the disease was confined to the area
surrounding the village of Plympton.
Smallpox
killed nine people in Cornwood in 1770-71. The disease was not recorded in
either of Plympton St. Mary or Plympton St. Maurice, however a large number of
children and infants died between 1769 and 1771 leading one to wonder if
smallpox played a role in their deaths.
In
Cornwood parish, twenty-eight people died of phthisis (tuberculosis) between
1799 and 1823. Very likely more suffered as well both before and after these
years, which was during the time Rev. Duke Yonge was vicar, but the causes of
death were not noted. Again no such cause of death was recorded in the adjacent
parishes of Harford, PS Mary and Plympton St. Maurice which might suggest the
disease was confined to Cornwood.
There
was an outbreak of scarlet fever in Plympton St. Mary from December 1850 to May
1851 during which 10 people died, nine of them very young children – two from
each of three families, and six from the same village.
Other Information or Events
Sometimes
the manner of death was an accident such as drowning, falling, from a fire or,
more recently, in a car crash. In these cases one might want to look for a
coroner’s report to get more information.
If
someone just passing through died, a note might be written that they were a
“stranger” to the parish. Those buried may not even have been named. I wrote about
some of these entries on 25 August 2013 in a blog titled Some Unusual
Endings.
Quite
a large number of people (230) were buried in Plympton St. Mary between 1886
and 1953 “without the rites of the church” which might indicate they either had
not been baptized in the Church of England, baptisms could not be confirmed or the
individuals were of other religions.
In
the Plympton St. Mary burial register, of the total 2,793 burial entries between
1922 and 1973, the actual grave locations were recorded for 1,058 individuals by
the various vicars. This is very useful information for descendants seeking to
find where their ancestors were interred.
Major
conflicts were the cause of death of many individuals, both as soldiers, who
were carried home for burial or regular citizens caught up in conflicts.
Another of my blog posts, titled Military
References in the Parish Registers referenced some of the older entries.
During World War II, the dockyards of Plymouth were a major target of the
German Luftwaffe. Between 1940 and 1944, there were 59 bombing raids resulting
in the deaths of 1,172 civilians and another 4,448 injured. According to the
notes in the Cornwood register, four of those killed in Plymouth were brought
“home” to Cornwood for burial. The reason for their passing was noted in the
burial register.
 |
Portions of pages 83 and 84 of the burial register
for Cornwood parish (number 2764/7) showing the names of four individuals
killed during air raids in Plymouth in 1941.
|
(copyright owned by the Plymouth and West Devon
Record Office)
|
Whenever
possible, it is very useful for family historians to consult the actual
documents where events were recorded about their ancestors. The old parish
burial registers can be particularly valuable to add colour and explanation to
a family story.
Baptism images
reproduced here are used with the kind permission of the Plymouth and West Devon Record
Office (PWDRO),
the copyright-holder. Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program, handling four
parishes in Devon, England. He
has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a
past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly
journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides
genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.
