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Topics - xiaolu

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Australia / Query about NSW death certificates for people who died less than 30 years ago.
« on: Friday 29 June 18 15:44 BST (UK)  »
I am facing the need to obtain a NSW death certificate for a person who passed away more recently than 30 years ago.

The NSW BDM website says:

This application form can only be used if the death occurred in NSW.  If you are the next-of-kin named on the death certificate i.e. spouse ( married, defacto, same sex defacto ) , parent, or child of the deceased, the death certificate can be issued to you.   If you are a relative not listed on the certificate,  the certificate can be issued to you if the deceased HAD ( my emphasis ) no living spouse, children or parents.

This seems to me,  somewhat ambiguous and also somewhat unworkable.

It is my understanding,  that a person has a single "next of kin",  and that spouses have priority,  then children, then parents.  I don't know exactly how the BDM department applies this.  I do know that in WW1,  there was a great deal of bickering over whether soldiers were allowed to name their mother as next-of-kin.

It also seems, from the BDM website,  that what was recorded when the death occured has precedence,  not the situation at the time when the certificate was sought.

Do death certificates now actually specify a "next of kin"?  I have bought a few and recently inherited many more.  But most of them are 50-150 years old.   None of them explicitly seem to name a next-of-kin, as such.

Many of them don't name children,  only something like ( 2 sons, 3 daughters ).

Here are some scenarios.  I know some of you are experts and would be able to clarify these.

(1)  My father died in 1991, less than 30 years ago.  At the time, he was married to his second wife,  who died in 1995.  I am the only child named on his death certificate.   In 1991,  his second wife was his next-of-kin,  not me.

How many hoops to do I have to jump through to prove she is dead, and therefore I am the next-of-kin?    Bearing in mind,  I am not her next-of-kin,  because she has or had a son from her first marriage, who I only met once,  don't know his middle name, may or may not be still living,  had a very common surname and lived in another state. Anyway,  the point is that I probably don't have legal standing to apply for my step-mother's death certificate either,  so how can I legally prove that she is dead then ?

(2)   Is it only the oldest child who can be the next-of-kin,  and apply for the death certificate ?

(3)  Suppose it was my grandfather who died in 1991.   He had no spouse and two living children at the time of his death.  My father is now deceased.  His sister, my aunt, had no children and is currently in a vegetative state in a nursing home.  The BDM website states that I need to get a letter of Authority, giving permission from the next-of-kin for me to apply to obtain a copy of the death certificate.  Including my aunt's address, phone number, and signature.  And also 3 pieces of ID,  which she may not have.

I don't think she has a phone,  and is probably incapable of signing anything.

(4)  What happens when, at the time of the person's death,  the death certificate lists none,  or only one of, the deceased person's children,  although there was more than one ?

(5)  What happens when the father died in 1991,  and his wife died in 1993, overseas,  and has no Australian death certificate ?

These seem to be highly plausible scenarios.

When I married my current husband,  a foreign citizen,  the rigmarole was absurd.  The foreign government demanded documentary proof that I had never been married in New South Wales.   The fact that I had married my first husband in Melbourne did not seem to have entered their minds.

So my question is,  how "practical" or alternatively "bloody-minded"  is the NSW BDM department concerning death certificates in these sort of cases.

2
Australia / AMIET - are these the same person ?
« on: Wednesday 27 June 18 14:59 BST (UK)  »
In NSW:

Frederick Amiet or Amiets appears in NSW in 1897 when he married Selina Manton.  Selina already has a son, Vincent, aged about 5,  whose birth is registered in 1892, and who goes to the first world war.  Frederick was a blacksmith.

Frederick and Selina have about six more children, starting with "Earnist F Amiets" in 1898, and then Harold Hector Amiet, and then several more.   Frederick dies in 1937 and according to the NSW Death registration index,  his name is apparent "Alfred Frederick Amiet",  although no other mention of him in NSW has this name, just Frederick.  According to the death index,  the informant said his parents were Louis and Louise.  Frederick was a blacksmith.  He was probably quite a respectable fellow,  he was appointed to be a JP, although this was later cancelled when he was bankrupt.

Most of this family lived at Carinda, a small village between Walgett and Brewarrina.

His son Harold Hector Amiet died in 1940.   His son Ernest F Amiet was married in about 1922,  his wife Alice died in 1937 aged 41, leaving a young family of seven.  Another newspaper mentions that they had four sons.   One of the sons of Ernest and Alice appears to have been another Harold Amiet, who was probably born in the later 1920's and married Margaret A Pascoe at Coonamble in 1952.   They had about 6 children.  The second Harold died in 1984,  the death registration index names his as Harold Hector Amiet and his father Ernest Frederick and his mother is unnamed. Margaret (Pascoe) Amiet died in 2014 and both appear to be buried at Baradine.    For an unknown reason,  the NSW marriage index calls him Harold Peter Amiet.

Meanwhile,  in Victoria,  three gents named Amiet turn up in 1849 from the same village in Switzerland.   Supposedly they were supposed to start the wine industry in Victoria.

One, Frederick, married the daughter of Governor LaTrobe's housekeeper, had about 5 children, and died in 1864, aged 36.

Another one,  Jean Francois Amiet, also married in Victoria and also had several children.

The third one,  Louis Abraham Amiet ( or Abraham Louis Amiet ), was apparently already married to a Marie Louise (Ducommun) Amiet.  He died in 1872.  Newspaper advertisments were placed, advising that Louise Amiet ( the widow ) intended to continue running their Swiss restaurant in Geelong, which had been in business for 15 years.   However,  in 1873,  she tried to sell the business, transfered her wine license, married a mysterious J.C. Sangroubert ( spelling varies )  and stated she was returning to Switzerland.    However, at some point, she came back to Geelong where she died around 1893.

These three Amiet gents may have been brothers or half-brothers or cousins.   There is a tree on the internet containing quite a lot about the descendants of the first two ( with some apparent mistakes ),  and mentions Louis but nothing about his family.  I contacted the person who made that tree and he said he was aware of Louis but could not find anything much about him.

Then, there is also Alfred Amiet.  The victorian registration index has an Alfred Amiet born 1855,  son of Louis and Louise,  who apparently dies in 1856.

There is an Alfred Amiet who is an apprentice blacksmith in Geelong in 1874, married in 1879,  has his own business in 1880, which is glowingly described in 1884.  He is also a councillor of the West Geelong council.  However, in 1892 he transfers his business to be wound up,  and thereafter disappears from Victoria.   There are no recorded children from his apparent 1879 marriage.  His wife is mentioned in 1887 having a public fight with another woman in the street.  There is no apparent death for Alfred or his wife in Victoria.  There are newspaper ads in Geelong in 1896 advertising a large blacksmiths workshop for rent in Geelong, "known as Amiets".

These Amiets had a long habit of naming sons, not after their father or grandfather, but their uncle.  Maybe that is a swiss thing.

My hypothesis is that Louis and Louise Amiet had another son Alfred, in the late 1850's,  whose birth registration is not apparent,  but named after the Alfred born in 1855 who died.  My theory is that this Alfred is the blacksmith,  who in the mid 1890's sometime left Victoria after his business failed and his mother died.  He turns up at Carinda NSW where he married Selina Manton in 1897, and has several children, and was still a blacksmith.  His death in 1937 would be about 80.   However, except for the 1937 death registration, he is always called Frederick in NSW, except when he died.   Whatever happened to his apparent first wife,  is not at all obvious.

Any info or advice about these people ?  I guess the first thing to do is get the 1937 death certificate and see what else it says.  First, I need to persuade the people I am looking at this for to pay for it.

I am also trying to find the parents of Margaret A Pascoe.  She was supposedly 80 when she died in 2014,  so born around 1934 and about 18 when she married.

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