Deaths near the very end of the year. Buried early the following year.

[coombs]

It is quite a common thing, especially as many people do and did die in the winter months. Although 50+ years ago funerals were often just 3 or 4 days after the death, whereas today they can be 2 weeks after the death. I have found numerous cases of an ancestor dying in the last few days of one year and being buried in the first few days of the following year. We have births, marriages and deaths but 2 other main life events are baptisms and burials of course.

An instance is one ancestor died 30th December 1896 so was buried 4th January 1897.

My great grandfather died on the 30th December 1958. Death was registered on the 31st December 1958, and he was buried on the 3rd January 1959. Southend Standard issue dated 1 Jan 1959 says his funeral will be 3rd January at 11:30am.

[casram]

My Grandmother died 28th December 1967 and was buried 5 January 1968.

[Jomot]

2-weeks is actually ambitious at the end of the year, as there are a chain of people who need to be involved before anything can happen - with a cremation anyway.

My Dad died early morning on 20th Dec (Tuesday), but it took his GP two days to send the cause of death certificate to the registrar, who then rang & offered me a slot for Saturday 24th.  The crematorium needs paperwork from the registrar before they can accept a 'booking', so allowing for the Xmas bank holidays it would have been 28th Dec - a full 8 days later - before I could have even started to make any arrangements.

Fortunately the registrar slotted me in on Friday 23rd instead, so all the paperwork was where it needed to be before the long weekend, but even so I was still very lucky to get a cremation slot for 4th Jan, as otherwise the next available one was 10th Jan - a full 3-weeks after Dad's death.

[Pheno]

Not just way back when.

We buried my brother yesterday 5 Jan 2023.  He died 19 November 2022.  The coroner got involved, which is quite time consuming, and an interim death certificate was only issued on 6 December 2022.  Although I went to the undertaker before then by the time all their paperwork was completed and the time it takes to dig a grave meant that there was no availability prior to 21 December - the last date for burial before Christmas and the first date after the New Year was 4th Jan.  We opted for 5th Jan.

6 weeks and 6 days between death and burial.

Pheno

[Jomot]

Sorry for your loss Pheno.  As mentioned above, my Dad's cremation was the day before.

[Pheno]

And for yours too Jomot - our posts crossed.

Pheno

[coombs]

A pal of mine died on the 29th December 2021 and was cremated 14th Jan 2022. So his actual final exit from the world actually was the year after he died. With burials, the body is interred but the skeleton can remain for centuries or more.

My dad died 9th October, cremated 28th October.

My gran died and was buried 2 weeks later in October 1970.

[pharmaT]

I have seen several families have to wait over a month recently it is heartbreaking.

[Kiltpin]

When my mother died in 2019, she particularly wanted cremation. There was a backlog at the time and the time from death to cremation was 1 day short of 8 weeks. 

In the end it was a good thing as 3 people who had known her in India came for the funeral (as part of a family holiday). 

Regards 

Chas