GRO has no death certificate for an 1895 death

[Mart 'n' Al]

I'm thick, half-witted, (if that) and stupid.  And candid.  And grateful.  It is now ordered.

She is listed as Rebecca on the 1891 census.  I have always thought that that was a mistake, rather than a different wife(!), so I want to confirm that.  I asked an arty friend to see if he could write Rebecca and Barbara so that they looked very similar, and he managed it.  I can only guess that someone in the household wrote it down for the enumerator, and he misread it.

Actually, Lavid and Laird are not really phonetically similar.  But I'm glad somebody somewhere writing software thought they were.

M

[Mart 'n' Al]

I just thought I'd report that the GRO death certificate that I ordered last Wednesday arrived yesterday, Monday. It confirmed my suspicions that she had been wrongly added to the 1891 census as Rebecca Laird when her name was actually Barbara Laird. I think 3 working days is very good service. Sadly she died from 4 years of heart disease, 2 years of paralysis and 2 hours of syncope.

Martin

[LizzieW]

I think 3 working days is very good service.

  The PDF records do come quickly, especially when there is no WDYTYA on TV.

Hopefully the one I ordered on Friday will turn up soon.  I've 2 ordered in the usual way, one a marriage which isn't available PDF and another one a death overseas which again you can't order as a PDF.

[coombs]

Often a fresh pair of eyes can help.

As we all know, some entries never made it to the index, and even after 1874, some births or deaths may have missed registration. But lucky for you Martin, your lady was found.

[Mart 'n' Al]

Since it was pointed out to me that Laird could be mistranscribed as Lavid, I now realise that, at least on The Genealogist, every hit for Lavid should probably be Laird.  This has given me new areas to explore.  I will be telling The Genealogist.

18:59 update. Since adding this I now realise that just about every entry I can find on Ancestry or The Genealogist or on Family search referring to Lavid,  is a mistranscription of Laird. You only need to put the dot over the I a little bit off to the right to cause confusion. If you ignore the dot every example I have examined is clearly Laird.  I hope this helps someone.

Martin

[Mart 'n' Al]

Apologies for replying to my own post, but I reported the 'Lavid' mistranscriptions to The Genealogist yesterday and received this reply this morning.  I was impressed.

"Dear Mr Watson,

Thank you for your email and for bring this to our attention. This error has now been noted and I shall ensure that all incorrect transcriptions of the surname Laird will be corrected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused, and if you have any further enquiries please contact us again.

Kind Regards,
Nicki"

[LizzieW]

As far as I know, The Genealogist is run by a family, so they answer emails promptly, unlike the large companies where the emails get passed around different departments until someone decides to respond.

[Mart 'n' Al]

Lizzie, yes I agree.  In my dealings with them, they seem very well organised.

Martin

[Melbell]

I like The Gene and use it a lot, but I do find you have to think very creatively when searching for surnames - their transcribers sometimes seem to have very 'creative' ways of thinking about spelling!!

Melbell