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Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 2:58 AM
Quick background.
Some neighbours had a caravan at Heacham in Norfolk, and one year they went out in a boat and presumably drowned. (Don't think the boat exploded or anything similar.)
Can't remember the year but it must have been after at least 1958/1959 because he's listed in a town book as living at an address. I think the book was actually published in 1961 but the page with that piece of information on it is missing.
I thought the parents died while their daughter was still at school, but I've (allegedly :D ) searched up to 1969 without any success, and the daughter would have left school by September 1963.
So the question is - am I wasting my time searching the GRO Index because the deaths would be classified as 'deaths at sea'? I don't have a clue how far out to sea they might have been.
The husband was always known as Ron, but that may have been a second name (his brother always used his second name) so I've checked for deaths registered in Kings Lynn, the RD for Heacham in the 1950s and 60s.
The funny-peculiar thing is that I can still remember hearing on the radio news that a boat with four people on board was missing from Heacham, and thinking 'oh that's where Ron's got a caravan', never dreaming for a moment that it would turn out to be Ron and co who were missing.
Pam

Geoffers
06-12-2007, 8:51 AM
Pam
Initially, I'd sggest trying Lynn library for the Lynn News and Advertiser
http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/consumption/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&ssDocName=NCC007530&ssSourceNodeId=&ssTargetNodeId=258

also The Lynn News
http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/
in case they can check their archives

Hunstantion Coastguard via the maritime and coastguard agency

Hunstanton RNLI

If they were recorded as deaths at sea those are included on 'findmypast'

Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 10:21 AM
Hi Geoffers,
Thank you very much for your suggestions. Checking the Lincolnshire local papers for the details will be no problems - once I know the quarter and year! :D
Strangely enough it would seem that 'Deaths at sea' on findmypast only go from 1854 - 1890.(Yeah, I thought they went longer, got a shock when I looked last night.)
TNA research guide http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=246&j=1
seems to refer to passenger ships as opposed to little motor boats.
The GRO web site tells me how to register a death, but that's it. However I've now found what I think is a general enquiries email address for the GRO, so will try that for a 'how far out to sea is a death at sea?' answer. Watch this space. :)
Pam

Geoffers
06-12-2007, 11:38 AM
Strangely enough it would seem that 'Deaths at sea' on findmypast only go from 1854 - 1890.(Yeah, I thought they went longer, got a shock when I looked last night.)


Curses

In that case - was Admon or Probate granted??

AnnB
06-12-2007, 1:40 PM
Pam, I think I've found what you are looking for in the Times - 1st October 1962 "Bitain Clears up After the Gales" :)

Best wishes
Ann

Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 3:27 PM
Pam, I think I've found what you are looking for in the Times - 1st October 1962 "Bitain Clears up After the Gales" :)

Best wishes
Ann
How the heck did you manage to find that Ann? You are a total genius.
|bowdown| |bowdown|
I cannot thank you enough. I've now re-checked the GRO Index for the December quarter and can find a Douglas R aged 50, so possibly slightly older than I would have thought, and a Charles J, aged 47, both with deaths registered in Fakenham, but 10 pages apart unless there's a typing error in the Index. I can only presume that the bodies were washed ashore along the Fakenham RD stretch of coastline.
Meanwhile, while two-fingered Tess has been typing this reply, I've received a reply from the GRO.

"If you have checked the England and Wales death records and no trace of the deaths were recorded, it may well be that they were registered with the Registrar of Shipping and if this was
the case they would be held by the overseas department. The indexes are called Marine Deaths. These records are kept in year order and you need to know the exact year to locate the entries. Please also bear in mind that there may have been an inquest and if this was the case then regisrations could have been done much later that the actual year of death.
Regarding your question about how far is at sea. There is no distance stipulated, it depends on the low watermark e.g. when the tide goes out as far as you can walk out before you hit the sea is the distance in that area. Beyond that distance would be "at sea" Similarly if a person fell in a harbour the death would be recorded in the normal death registration which covered that harbour. So the distance varies from place to place."

Dimbo can't remember the names of either of the wives, but I've checked for Charles' wife in the whole of 1963 without success, so I think the bodies must have been found 'at sea' and that their deaths will be in Marine Deaths.
Will be checking the local papers avidly next May :eek: when I next go to Boston.
Thank you so much again Ann.
Pam

Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 3:52 PM
Curses

In that case - was Admon or Probate granted??
Hi Geoffers,
In theory a good idea, but probably not if I didn't know Ron's correct full name - might have had rather a lot of names to look through, especially as I didn't know the year. Charles (now I know for certain what his first name was :D ) should have stuck out like a sore thumb though.
I'll go stand in the corner for not thinking 'out of the box'. |dunce2|
Ron would almost certainly have made a will because he was a partner in the building firm that built our house. :) (Ours was one of the second pair of semi-detached built on the estate - Ron and his brother living in the first pair.)

As an O/T aside, the query started because my uncle has a copy of the Boston Blue Book for 1933, and a (rather battered) town directory for circa 1960, so I decided to copy the names of all the people who lived in 'our road' in those years, and I then added a few notes of my own such as 'two daughters'. And after seeing 'Bethsheba Killick' listed in 1933 I'm beginning to feel a one-place study coming on. :D though considering everything else I've got going on at the moment I think it should be :eek: :eek:
Pam

AnnB
06-12-2007, 5:11 PM
How the heck did you manage to find that Ann? You are a total genius.


I'm not, honest (but thank you all the same) - I just went to the keyword search and put in Heacham, then scrolled down the results from 1957 onwards till I found what I found :)

Best wishes
Ann

Geoffers
06-12-2007, 5:31 PM
Ron would almost certainly have made a will because he was a partner in the building firm that built our house.

You have the date now, so it's a bit late. But in cases such as this, to bear in mind for fuitre and when a firm may be involved - there is a possibility that the firm may have been wound up as a result of the death and you can check these on TNA's catalogue. enter a surname in the first field, dates and in the Department of Series code enter BT. You'll get the bankruptcies in BT226 and dissolved companies in BT31.

Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 7:43 PM
Thank you for the extra info re companies, Geoffers. Don't think I'll need it for any of my own family of ag labs and fishermen, but it might come in handy for the Empson's one-name study. :)
Pam

Pam Downes
06-12-2007, 10:02 PM
I'm not, honest (but thank you all the same) - I just went to the keyword search and put in Heacham, then scrolled down the results from 1957 onwards till I found what I found :)

Best wishes
Ann
I insist that you be officially classed as a genius.:D Even Geoffers hadn't thought about trying the Times -all he could suggest was the Lynn News. :):)
A lesson to us all to remember that even local news sometimes hits the big time.
Pam

Geoffers
06-12-2007, 10:55 PM
Geoffers hadn't thought about trying the Times -all he could suggest was the Lynn News. :):)


|sad1|

|dunce2|

Ken Boyce
07-12-2007, 2:23 AM
Just to put my 2 cents in to muddy the waters I too have been searching (on and off) for the "official" document that records my father's death at sea. The only record I've located todate is the CWGC citation of the inscription on the Tower Hill Memorial in London to those in the British Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who have no known grave

By piecing together the information from the Memorial Inscription, the entry in the Memorial Register at Trinity House (both of which our family have visited) and the information given in a couple books "The World'sMerchant Fleets 1939 and the HMSO British vessels Lost at Sea 1939-45 (no longer available except by private photocopy) we now know his rank, ship, name, age, date of death, details and history of the ship and the fact that the ship was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic whilst in convoy HX10 by Uboat U95. We know the approximate location of the sinking and that the ship had a crew of 35 of which 34 were killed and 1 survivor. We also know that commercial marine salvage and exploration interests have plotted many of the wartime sinkings often with details of the ship's manifest.

The difficulty for us has been that the records of marine personel are not yet accessible for searching from afar

...... but I have digressed from the reason for my intrusion which is that during my research I have on occasion come across the fact that it appears there maybe different sets of records for those non-military persons lost at sea in "Home" waters and those lost in "foreign" waters By foreign that could mean outside of 25 miles which I believe was at one time the limit of territorial waters in the UK.

Regards

Ken Boyce
07-12-2007, 6:29 AM
PS Re my posting I am aware of the online records at findmypast