Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 March 9

= March 9 =

UK obituaries
Say I want to find out if someone has died. I know their name and general location in the UK. How would I search for this? Temerarius (talk) 18:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a straightforward matter. If they have died, there will of course be a death certificate, and since a death certificate is a public record, in theory it should be available.  You can request copies of death certificates from the General Register Office here but you would need to know the name and area, which it sounds like you have, but also presumably the approximate date of death, which it sounds like you don't have (since you're not sure if they've died). I haven't used the GRO's services myself, so I don't know exactly what information they require. As far as I know there is no freely available, searchable, online database of public records in the UK. --Viennese Waltz 08:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * At least for Scotland, National Records for Scotland (the Scottish Government's official registry) provides free search of birth, marriage, and death certificates at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk - ordering a copy of a certificate costs money, but simply seeing that a record exists is free. I just searched for someone I know died in Scotland earlier this year, and found the record with nothing more than their name. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 20:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You could try Funeral-notices.co.uk, or the websites of local newspapers. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In some cases (although it is not mandatory), the executor(s) of a will of a deceased person will place a "deceased estates" notice in The London Gazette. This gives the name and address of the deceased.  You can search for them here; refine by date, name etc. as required.  This should work for England and Wales; The Edinburgh Gazette and The Belfast Gazette presumably have equivalent sections in relation to Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.  Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  15:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello Hassocks, do we know each other? Any particular will in mind, like the one we were talking about last week?
 * Anyway, the responsibility here is to place a notice in a "newspaper of record", as it is usually termed. This might well the the LG, but The Times was also widely used for this purpose too, and on a more practical level it is common practice to also place such notices in the relevant local paper for where the deceased lived or died. So one might need to search a little further.
 * Another way is to ignore the death and go for the burial / cremation records instead. Particularly if cremated, this is likely to be a very short list of only a few crematoria in a local area. Also people often favour burial in particular places, but are less fussy about cremation, so tend to be cremated by simply the nearest. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:55, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Floreat Hova? No, sorry, guess it won't be you!  Chap I'm thinking of had no love for the place. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Really need to know some more to provide a better answer, the older the event the more easier it gets. What sort of date are you looking at? And if you have anybody particular we might be able to help. MilborneOne (talk) 13:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I was asking about recent dates--very recent. Temerarius (talk) 07:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * This shouldn't be a problem.  Contact the registrar of births, marriages and deaths for the registration area in which the deceased was resident.   This is usually coterminous with the boundary of the local council district - the office is usually located in the town hall. 2A00:23C5:318A:3100:38D1:3264:444D:A59A (talk) 11:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Also anybody who had died in the UK and probate has been granted on the estates appears at https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills within a few days of the event. MilborneOne (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)