RootsChat.Com

Quote from: Erato on Today at 00:55

It's hard to see how some of these things can be considered "myths" or even commonly held, but erroneous, beliefs.

"the census will give which cottage our ancestors lived in"
"Everyone should be on the censuses ..."
"you should be able to always find a record of a death"

These may be misapprehensions held by some, but they're not myths.  A myth is a traditional story handed down from generation to generation.  They are the things you heard at your mother's knee or simplified historical 'facts' you learned in elementary school.  Myths put spin on historical reality; they teach us the accepted party line.   But who among us grew up beleving anything at all, whether true or false, about censuses or death records?  Censuses and BMDs are not the subjects of mythology.

There are genealogical myths, though.  For example, that North America was largely settled by people who were fleeing religious persecution.  Some settlers were, but not the majority.   That is a myth.

Only in your part of North America. There is no Canadian myth about the first Europea settlers fleeing religious persecution; they were French men and women who continued to practice Catholicism in New France. 
Many of the early settlers here of English and German backgrounds were fleeing the American Revolution.
The large number of early Scots who came here worked in the fur trade.  No fleeing religious persecution that I have ever heard.

I agree, religious persecution did not enter into the reason for the early settlers coming to Canada. They were here to make fortunes in the fur trade. We also must never forget the Blacks fleeing slavery via the Underground Railway, large numbers ended up in Nova Scotia and in BC.

Religious persecution did enter into immigration into Canada but not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially from certain areas of Europe .... Doukhobor, Mennonite, Amish, etc ........ but that is well-documented!

Another myth is that you should be able to always find a record of a death of someone. It is easier from civil registration onwards but even then not always. Workhouse burials where the registers do not survive, non conformist burials, lost at sea, went missing and never identified etc, and so on.

Lots of overseers ratebooks and disbursement books for Essex are on FamilySearch for a number of parishes. I was able to pinpoint an ancestor's death year by this, as it said "William Ingram Snr" for September 1794 ratebooks but for Dec 1794 it said "Widow Ingram" for what seems to be the same property as the neighbours names are the same. No burial can be found in Leigh On Sea for him in 1794 but he may have been buried elsewhere or in a workhouse cemetery or NC grounds. Also the family were mariners so worked in a dangerous job, and he may have been lost at sea.

Handy to use such books if a burial cannot be found.

.............. and don't mention that you can find baptisms, especially before registration began! For one thing, not all vicars added the birth date to the Church Register, and not all did it all the time.

I've found some baptised when they were in their teens or even later, just before they married. Then there are the ones when siblings were baptised at the same time, sometimes because the family lived in an area where there was not a priest available (eg out on the moors), and they had to wait until one came on his rounds or they went to a village.

Many children were baptised late because they were just about to start work, and employers insisted on it. If the child did not know, then s/he'd be baptised again "just in case",

My maternal grandfather was baptised at the same time as his younger sister, which helped with his lying about his birthday!

I have one who wed in Norwich in 1725 and she only had 2 known children, maybe she was about 35 when she married. I found a likely burial in 1768 aged 80, so born c1688. Then again we should never wholly rely on ages given in records, especially ones that have a "landmark" figure age at burial like 70 or 80, maybe the informant estimated their age.

Even now, you cannot trust ages, or many other "facts", on death certificates, as they are only what is known to the informant.

My grandfather died in 1963, he had always told us his birthday was on Christmas Day, and he was a certain age. That is what his son declared to the Registrar.

Nope, he was born on January 9 and his age was about 2 years out! But that was only found out later.

I believe that all you can expect to be true on any death certificate, up to the present day, is .....

Date of Death
Place of Death
Cause of Death
Doctor's Name
Coroner's Name (if there)
Name and Address of Informant (hopefully)

All else is only what is known to the informant, and must be checked out very carefully, if possible.

A possible from FindMyPast

Hugh Jamieson, born 1901, age 24, Occupation Joiner
Left Glasgow 21st May 1925, for Montreal, Quebec
Ship's Name: Marloch, A Canadian Pacific (CP) ship
Capt G Hamilton

That is another possibility, I hadn't actually thought of twins.

Also, the way the story is phrased ....... "20 children twice" .......... implies that there were 20 children born and #20 died to be replaced 9 months or so later by another baby

But again, this was such a religious family, and it was pretty common back then in England, and possibly elsewhere, for the midwife (who might have been one of the older daughters) to swear that a baby had taken 2 breaths before dying and that she had done an emergency baptism to ensure that the baby would be buried within the church, and not just discarded.

That is often shown in the Parish Register as Private Baptism, and could be done by any adult in an emergency. If the baby lived it would be baptised again in church by the Priest at a later date.

There is just nothing that I can find to explain the story .............. no certificates, no Parish Register entry, nothing on grave stones, and we have been to that churchyard and cleaned many of this family's grave stones.

It's a family story that niggles!