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  1. #1
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    Question Missing death certificate (2007)

    I applied to the GRO for a death certificate for a distant relation, providing the full name and date of death as detailed on the Grant of Probate. The probate confirms the deceased as domiciled in England and Wales but the GRO has returned my fee as they were unable to find an entry in the indexes. I originally discovered that this person was deceased via Ancestry which uses the GreyPower Deceased Data from Wilmington Millenium. Can anyone suggest why the GRO doesn't appear to have a record and how I should progress?

    TIA

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    Hi Ian, and welcome.

    The lack of a record at the GRO probably means that the person died outside England and Wales. For tax purposes, domiciled isn't always the same as resident - and those who live in E&W sometimes die abroad anyway. There are overseas BMD indexes, though I'm not sure how easy it is to access the more recent ones.

    The Wilmington Millenium data is sometimes helpful, but it's not compiled from official sources. As far as I can tell it's anything they've managed to gather from press reports, funeral directors etc - possibly the probate indexes too. Maybe not the last one, though - I have relatives who have died in the past 10-20 years and appear in the probate index, but they're not in the Wilmington data.

    One way to find where the person died would be to order a copy of the full probate file (ie not just the will), as it should be given there. Or just googling for their name and year of death might find them - 2007 is recent enough for people to have been doing online tributes and obituaries. Or you might find an online death notice in a newspaper local to where they used to live.

    If you feel like giving a name and other information, no doubt someone here will be up for the challenge.

  3. #3

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    A small addition to Arthur's comments - "GRO" in this context does not include Scotland or (N)Ireland. Their records are separate.

    I must admit that I hadn't heard of Wilmington Millenium before, but given a choice for accuracy between PRO and Ancestry (or any transcription service), I'd go for the folk with the original registrations! Did you ask them for an exact date, or give them some chronological wiggle room?

    I've just tried the Anc collection for my Father (d. England 1999) - not found.

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    Quote Originally Posted by arthurk View Post
    Hi Ian, and welcome.

    The lack of a record at the GRO probably means that the person died outside England and Wales. For tax purposes, domiciled isn't always the same as resident - and those who live in E&W sometimes die abroad anyway. There are overseas BMD indexes, though I'm not sure how easy it is to access the more recent ones.

    One way to find where the person died would be to order a copy of the full probate file (ie not just the will), as it should be given there. Or just googling for their name and year of death might find them - 2007 is recent enough for people to have been doing online tributes and obituaries. Or you might find an online death notice in a newspaper local to where they used to live.

    If you feel like giving a name and other information, no doubt someone here will be up for the challenge.
    Thanks Arthur. That could make sense. My understanding was that he had retired to Goa and I had assumed that the UK address on the Grant of Probate and the statement of domicile in England & Wales meant he had returned. How do I get a copy of the full probate file? The probate search service only offers the grant and will.

    If anyone knows how to research in Goa, his name is Jeremy David Smart and he died on 17 May 2007.

    TIA

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    Quote Originally Posted by IanMK13 View Post
    How do I get a copy of the full probate file? The probate search service only offers the grant and will.
    Grant and will should be enough. I was possibly getting a bit carried away thinking about much older ones where archives offer copies of either the will on its own, or the full probate file, including the grant and any inventory etc. With recent ones, though, I've a feeling that the financial details are kept private.

    Anyway, in these more recent cases a will should tell you where the testator was living when they wrote it, which may not be the same as where they died, but it's the grant that you need to find out when and where they died and who the executor was.

    (For pre-1966 wills this is all in the free index - no doubt it was changed to make people like us pay for copies of the documents.)

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    Quote Originally Posted by arthurk View Post
    Anyway, in these more recent cases a will should tell you where the testator was living when they wrote it, which may not be the same as where they died, but it's the grant that you need to find out when and where they died and who the executor was.
    The address on the Grant is different to that on the Will. As I say, the Grant states domiciled in England & Wales and the address is in England. The Executor is a solicitor but his business doesn't exist any more (it's a pet shop and vape establishment )
    I've tried contacting a beneficiary of the will via Facebook but no reply, unfortunately.

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    Sorry - didn't realise you already had a copy of the grant, or that it wouldn't give any clues as to where he died.

    For tracking down a solicitor or whether the firm got taken over etc, might the Law Society's database help? It's at https://
    solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/

    Even if there's no reference to the firm itself now, I wonder if someone in another firm in the same town might know what happened to it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by arthurk View Post

    For tracking down a solicitor or whether the firm got taken over etc, might the Law Society's database help? It's at https://
    solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk/
    I tried this but there is no solicitor of the same name in the same part of the country (NW England)

    Quote Originally Posted by arthurk View Post


    Even if there's no reference to the firm itself now, I wonder if someone in another firm in the same town might know what happened to it?
    Thanks. That’s a good idea. It hadn’t occurred to me. I’ll give that a try.

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    Is this your bloke?
    Record set United Kingdom Deaths 2007-2016
    Jeremy David Smart
    Age 68
    Birth year 1939
    Death date 17 May 2007
    Place Blackpool
    Area Blackpool Lancashire
    Postcode area FY
    Postcode district FY3

    The one above seems to be on the Electoral Roll in 2002

    Jeremy D Smart
    Address - Flat, Ground Floor, 9, Rosebery Avenue, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 1LA
    Occupancy 2 years
    Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
    William Burroughs

  10. #10
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    Partly following on from arthurk's post #2 I found this
    https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ecorded-abroad
    but from what I can see it would depend on the death being recorded at the British Consulate.
    The overseas and England and Wales sections of the GRO operate separately.

    Depending on how much you want to spend, it might be worth asking Blackpool library if they have the local papers for 2007 and if so, if you provided a date of death how much would it cost for them to see if there is a death announcement/obituary, or alternatively if they do have the papers have an awayday to the town and have a look for yourself.

    Pam
    Vulcan XH558 - “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

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