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No Death Certificate Online

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tinkerbell23 | 23:32 Wed 22nd Feb 2023 | Genealogy
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Is there a reason I cannot find a death cert online from around 1939-1943 latest?

I have the birth cert but no death record.

I have tried a wide search & alternative spellings of the name.

Its really bugging me!!!!!
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Are you sure the person is dead?
I think there was a bit of a kerfuffle going on in those years. Maybe no one knew what happened to them. Or perhaps the paperwork was lost in a raid. Or maybe they ended up emigrating to somewhere else.
There is a period of time that has to pass before you can view online records, but I cant remember how long it is.
That effects the census more than BMD.
*waves to tinks*
No help from me...but lovely to see you. Hope all is well.

Oh...have you tried Ancestry.co.uk?
A death certificate won't exist unless someone formally registered the death. As O_G suggests, that might not have happened during the chaos of war. (A funeral director normally isn't meant to bury someone without a full death certificate but, during wartime, it's possible that just an interim certificate from a doctor might have sufficed, with nobody ever getting around to taking that interim document to a register office to formally register the death).

Also, if the person had a middle name, they might have been known to their friends and family by that name, resulting in their middle name being used, instead of their first name, on a death certificate.

If the person's surname sounded German, they might have thought it best to change it when war with Germany broke out.

Those are just a few of the vast number of reasons why a death certificate might seem to be missing.
It was paper records in those days, and those pesky Germans kept dropping bombs. The records might have been destroyed.
have you tried both the FreeBMD and the gro.gov.uk websites?

I don't think there was any great loss of death certificates through enemy action.
Are you sure the person died in the UK?
Question Author
I use scotlands people for records.

Definately dead- I have other family members in the grave…. Died in infancy but I dont know what age I am told around age 18months.

No middle name - I have birth cert.

I wondered if he died in Ireland as we have family there but I really doubt they travelled at that time.

His name is on the headstone….. assuming he is definately there.
Question Author
Ps… Hi Pasta xx
Tinkerbell !!!. Lovely to see you . All well ?
Have you checked the Mormon's FamilySearch website? It's often amazing to see what information it holds about people:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/
The Mormon's site is good but it has my father's father date of birth as five years after my father's.
^^^ Any website that accepts input from its users can never be relied on (including both Wikipedia and The AnswerBank). However I find FamilySearch is quite good. For example, it reminded me that my father was actually one of five children (rather than the three that I knew), with two of his siblings dying at birth or in infancy.

When looking at the site toward the end of last year, I was surprised to see that my uncle (whom I'd not seen for over a quarter of a century but with whom I occasionally exchanged quizzes and crosswords that we'd each set) had passed away. Not entirely trusting the site, I still sent a Christmas card to his address but, as I never got one back, I assume that the site's information must be correct.
I know it's stating the obvious, but the internet was not around in 1943.

Many paper records got destroyed 1943-1945 by enemy action.

With no info on the deceased, it is difficult to be more specific (e.g. when and how did he die.)

Have you tried Commonwealth War Graves (it's where my Dad'd death in 1945 is recorded).
^^^ Tinkerbell has stated that she's seeking the death certificate of a child who died in infancy, Canary42. So it's very unlikely that the CWGC would be of any assistance in her search.
Question Author
I dont think his death was any accident and where we live was not bombed etc… Its a strange one but thanks for all your suggestions I will look them up!

He was at most aged 2 I think x
Ooops, my bad.
check for alternative name spellings - people make mistakes.

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