FindmyPast adds Scottish and Northern Irish deaths 1980-2024

FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) has added two new additions this week for Northern Ireland and Scotland:

• 497,172 death record transcriptions from 1980-2024 added to the Scotland, Modern and Civil Deaths & Burials 1855-2024 collection.
• 28,292 additions to a new Ireland, Northern Ireland Deaths 1980-2024 database. 

Comment: I'll be honest, at first I felt a bit queasy seeing the index entry for my father who died in Scotland just 3 years ago. The information lists his name, town and county of death, and his birth and death dates. The source is given as "MiExact Ltd", the website for which at https://miexact.com denotes them as handling "Mortality and wills intelligence, events, data insights & data management solutions for the UK charity & commercial sectors."

This seems to be a similar sort of harvested data presentation as offered by Ancestry through its Scotland and Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2022 collection, the source of which is GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire. This site too offes my father's death entry, with practically the same information returned. 

However, on reflection it is not the fact that my father's death is noted there that bothers me - after all, it did happen three years ago, and there's an index entry for him on ScotlandsPeople, which hosts the state's official death records, and through which I can purchase copies of his death record. For genealogical purposes it will of course be helpful too. But I think what bugs me slightly about this is that a commercial company has an index of records including those up to 2024, and from a few test searches, the records appear to go up to January 2024 - in other words, there will be people included in this new database who have literally just passed away four months ago. At least on Ancestry there is a buffer zone of a couple of years for thiose who may be grieveing. 

Perhaps a slight tweak to this might make it a bit more tasteful, FindmyPast?

Chris

 Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Ancestry's Scotland and Northern Ireland Deaths Index

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has a useful collection on its site called the Scotland and Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2021 (https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60631/), which can help with recent deaths in both countries, carrying basic information on about half of all deaths in this period (I believe drawn from insurance claims data).

However, this week I noticed a problem with this collection. I searched for my father's death entry in 2021, and this was what I was presented with:

According to Ancestry's database, my father was born on 10 May 1945, and died 2 Jun 2021. In fact, he was born on 5 Oct 1945 and died 6 Feb 2021.

So what has happened? Ancestry has made a fairly ridiculous rookie mistake here with UK dates, which differ from how US dates are recorded. My father was born on 5/10/1945, not 10/5/1945 - and died on 6/2/2021 not 2/6/2021.

If you have used this databse, best to check that the same has not happened at your end - and if you have previously looked for someone and found a person with the same name but the wrong date, perhaps try again.

As with any data source, remember that just because something is in print does not necessarily make it accurate!

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

FindmyPast updates modern Scottish and Northern Irish death indexes

FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) has updated its midern Scotland and Northern Ireland death idnex collections:

Scotland, Modern And Civil Deaths & Burials 1855-2021
We've added 13,886 records to this collection, again from 2020-2021.

Ireland, Northern Ireland Deaths 1998-2021
There are 2,052 new additions to this collection, with the same years and information as the previous two sets.

Links for these and other new releases at https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/new/2020-2021-deaths

 

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Free Death Records access from MyHeritage for Halloween

From MyHeritage (www.myheritage.com):

Halloween is almost upon us, and to celebrate, MyHeritage is providing free access to all death records added to MyHeritage before October 2021 for one week only: October 27–November 2!

The records in this category include death, burial, and cemetery records as well as obituaries. These records are crucial sources of information for family researchers. Death certificates are typically issued within days of a death and can contain many details about a person’s life, such as their age at death, place of birth, parents’ names and origins, and the cause of death. The name of the person who provided these details may also be mentioned, and this can also be an important clue that can help you locate new relatives.

Burial and cemetery records can supplement death certificates and offer additional information, while obituaries may provide rich details about the person’s life: their interests, profession, passions, and connections in the community.

From last Halloween until the beginning of October, we added more than 37 million records to an already enormous collection of death records, burial records, cemetery records, and obituaries — bringing the total to 586,664,785 records. During that time, 11 collections were added or updated, including collections from Brazil, New Zealand, the United States, Poland, France, and more. So even if you’ve had a chance to peruse MyHeritage’s death record collection in the past, it’s worth taking a look to see if there’s anything new concerning your family history.

To search the MyHeritage death records collection visit https://www.myheritage.com/research/category-2030/death-burial-cemetery-obituaries.

(With thanks to Daniel Horowitz)

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Ancestry adds entries from 2019 to Scotland and Northern Ireland death index

Ancestry has expanded its Scotland and Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2019 collection (www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60631/) to include entries from the year 2019. From the site:

This collection is a compiled index that covers approximately 45% of the total deaths that occurred in this time period.

This index provides death details for people in Scotland and Northern Ireland, specifically their name, gender, date of birth or age at death, date of death, and residence place at time of death. However, they do not include the General Register Office (GRO) reference information. The index also contains a small number of records for people in Jersey and Isle of Man.

Source: GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.

A similar update for the England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2019 collection (www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60630/) has also been made.

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course starts August 31st - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.