Death Certs/1848

[audrey]

Can anyone help find death certs on S.P.I have had no luck
Ann Douglas formally Smith and husband James Douglas both died from cholera in December 1848 does anyone know if death certs were issued for Cholera victims .I know they both died within hours of each other as i have seen the report

Audrey

[lizci]

Statutory Registration didn't begin in Scotland until 1855 - before then there were no death certificates.  What you MIGHT find is OPR burial records, though many do not exist and those that do may not be complete.  They also tend to give sparse information about the deceased so it can be hard to work out if it is the right person.  If you know which parish they were living in, you can check on SP to see if burial records for that parish - and that year - are available.

Lizci

[DGFHS-vol]

Can anyone help find death certs on S.P.I have had no luck
Ann Douglas formally Smith and husband James Douglas both died from cholera in December 1848 does anyone know if death certs were issued for Cholera victims .I know they both died within hours of each other as i have seen the report

Audrey

Hi Audrey,
Confirming Lizci's post, there are no Scottish statutory (official) death certs before 1855.
This extract from the OPRs for Dumfries may be of interest.
Earlier this year DGFHS (www.dgfhs.org.uk) contributed Dumfries OPR data to the free disc issued with the February edition of WDYTYA magazine.  The volunteer who compiled the data has put it all online.  For a complete list of all the 1848 Dumfries cholera victims go to webpage
http://www.sypittdfs.myfreeola.com/sites/WDYTYA/St%20Michael's%20Church/opr.htm#opr-03
and scroll to the bottom of the page. 
The original OPR document lists only the data given in this extract.
There is a monument in St Michael's graveyard over the common grave of the 1832 victims but no lists are available because the clerk responsible recording burials was himself an early victim.
No such monument exists for the graves of the 1848 victims.  Tradition has it that they were all buried in the area now paved over leading to Burn's Mausoleum.

[RJ_Paton]

Just to add to what the others have said the following image is an extract from the SP index showing what is available in the OPR's held by them and as you can see death records are pretty scarce.

[Johnner Kid]

Hi Falkyrn
I agree, there appear be huge gaps in SP files for Dumfries, but look again at the dates covered for births, proclamations (marriages), burials.   The dates cover most years from the mid 1600s to 1854.
Consider the deaths/burials in more detail, I can say from experience, a few years I was involved with the DGFHS project publishing the Dumfrieshire OPR indexes.  Deaths  and burials  OPR took eight separate A5 booklets comprising a total of 30 thousand plus burial records.  If you back track to
http://www.sypittdfs.myfreeola.com/sites/WDYTYA/index.htm
from the link given above for the list of 1848 cholera victims, you will find a free pdf file copy of booklet #1 covering the period  1617 to 1679. this booklet alone lists 4 thousand burials. 
A short cut to the PDF (remember it is a biggy)
http://www.sypittdfs.myfreeola.com/sites/WDYTYA/OPR/Read%20On-screen.pdf
Cheers,
Sy

[DGFHS-vol]

Just to add to what the others have said the following image is an extract from the SP index showing what is available in the OPR's held by them and as you can see death records are pretty scarce.

Hi Falkyrn
I agree, there appear  be huge gaps in SP files for Dumfries, but look again at the dates covered for births, proclamations (marriages), burials.   The dates cover most years from the mid 1600s to 1854.
Consider the deaths/burials in more detail, I can say from experience, a few years I was involved with the DGFHS project publishing the Dumfrieshire OPR indexes.  Deaths  and burials  OPR took eight separate A5 booklets comprising a total of 30 thousand plus burial records.  If you back track to
http://www.sypittdfs.myfreeola.com/sites/WDYTYA/index.htm
from the link given above for the list of 1848 cholera victims, you will find a free pdf file copy of booklet #1 covering the period  1617 to 1679. this booklet alone lists 4 thousand burials. 
A short cut to the PDF (remember it is a biggy)
http://www.sypittdfs.myfreeola.com/sites/WDYTYA/OPR/Read%20On-screen.pdf
Cheers,
Sy

Moderator -- Apologies if this infringed NO advertising code.

[RJ_Paton]

LOL I don't know what went wrong - I had created an image with other parishes from the County to demonstrate my point and go and post the only one which disproves it .......