Finding someone's dates

Nanaki

What would be the regular places to find out someone's date of death?
My parents have been searching to find what would be my...great-great grandad's date of death.
It can be found nowhere, parish records, newspaper records, the birth/death registry. The man was a member of the RIC, nothing to be found in their records.
What might be somewhere else to look?

pinkypinky

Do you have an approximate decade of death or a place? Was he alive in 1911 to check the census?

Ostrom

Parish records are your best bet, a good many are available in the National Library but are painful to read. You could also check the local history journals for your area to find out who may be involved, or what data they are citing

Weepsie

could be a long shot, and a long way of doing it, but newspaper obituaries perhaps. any charities in the area too, they often kept records of local people

Nanaki

There is an approximate decade, my grandad thinks he was in his teens, is now 88, so 30s or 40s.
Yeah newpapers were tried, but it took a long time to cover only a few months or years I think.
Where would a census be checked?
Also, there's a possibility the man's death was never registered

sweet-rasmus

The census won't be released until after 100 years of it being recorded. We are just lucky with 1911. One of the best things is to ask nearly every (older) family member that you can get in contact with. Eventaully you will find it out. Took me years to learn my gg grandfather date of death, but that's how I managed it. Looking through obituraries is not worth it, as it may not have been in the paper. Have you tried familysearch.org (especially if it's an odd name)? It can be good, but again, my gg grandfathers death was not referenced on the site and I know they have records missing. The other choice is asking around for which cemetery he may have been buried in. Once you learn that you may be lucky if the cemetery has put their records on computer, but again, not all cemeteries have good records. Or are willing to do searches for you.

Best of luck!

Red_Marauder

I know it's already been mentioned, but newspaper searches are great for this. The Irish Newspapers Archive (if regional) or The Irish Times Historical Archive. My Dad was browsing on that a few months ago, and found out a heap of stuff about my Grandmother that she had never told us - including an engagement to a man before my Grandad, and then lots of nice stuff like old hockey photographs and stuff, exam results, etc.

You tend to need to be very specific about what you are looking for, only search newspapers that will be relevant, add townlands and placenames to surnames to get specific searches - I'd imagine an RIC officer is the kind of person who gets mentioned in hstorical newspaper articles (petty sessions, summonses) quite a bit.

Nanaki

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

The census won't be released until after 100 years of it being recorded. We are just lucky with 1911. One of the best things is to ask nearly every (older) family member that you can get in contact with. Eventaully you will find it out. Took me years to learn my gg grandfather date of death, but that's how I managed it. Looking through obituraries is not worth it, as it may not have been in the paper. Have you tried familysearch.org (especially if it's an odd name)? It can be good, but again, my gg grandfathers death was not referenced on the site and I know they have records missing. The other choice is asking around for which cemetery he may have been buried in. Once you learn that you may be lucky if the cemetery has put their records on computer, but again, not all cemeteries have good records. Or are willing to do searches for you.

Best of luck!

My grandad currently is the only older family member unfortunately.
It's a common name, I'm sure there were others in the same small town with the name.
You see, this came about as my grandad (the eldest surviving member, the only of his generation for this family) got a letter from the county council, as they want to identify who is in what grave in said cemetery. The name and date are wanted as the headstone was in disrepair, and it was wanted to add the names and dates of all interred there.
Cheers for your help, I'll take a look at that site

Ancee

try asking the local undertaker/funeral directors if they have records of his funeral.

pinkypinky

You haven't said where in the country you are but the local county library should hold electoral register records for the period that you could look at. Pearse St library has them on a computer for Dublin for most of the 30s/40s so you can search by name.

arnhem44

Its worth considering looking further afield,some RIC men were not even Irish and no RIC policeman could serve in his home county or his wifes home county.