Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

My husbands grandfather committed suicide in the early 1930s. We know very little about him other than a rough idea of his name.
He lived in London but travelled to another town to commit suicide, probably in 1932 or 1933.
I wondered whether I could obtain his death certificate. To help narrow down the possibilities do you know whether his death would be recorded where the suicide took place or in his home town? I have been told he killed himself in a taxi but dont know whether that is true.
Many thanks

Hello,
The only difficulty is finding when and where he died. If you gave us his name there's a very good chance that one of the SKPs here will find the GRO death index reference for you. After that, it will cost you £7.00 to order a death cert online from the GRO.
Dickiesam

Hi Stives
Welcome to the best forum around.
Dickiesams advice is excellent as usual.
If we could have a name, we may be able to help you.

Just to add the "White Wreath Assoc" of Australia has tabled Parliament to have the word "committed" removed from death certs when someone has taken their own life. Trying to get the press on side...long journey.

Good luck
Tina

Many thanks for your help and suggestions.
I think finding the death may be difficult as I dont know if it was recorded in London (where he lived) or where he died (which was somewhere in SE England) and it is a relatively common surname.
He was either Hugh or John Hugh Seymour and he died either late 1931 0r early 1932.
Best wishes

Hi St Ives,

I have looked in the death indexes between 1931-33, there are a few John Seymour listed, but not knowing his age at death would be a difficult one to pinpoint.

Jan

Hello St Ives,
Thinking sideways here.
Do you have your husband's father's birth certificate? If you don't have it I suggest you obtain a copy. It would provide an indicator as to when your husband' grandfather might have married and tell us the name of his spouse.

From the cert for that marriage there would be a good chance of finding when and where he was born. Having his year of birth would narrow down the deaths registered for Hugh or John Hugh Seymours considerably and might even identify the actual one.
Cheers,
Dickiesam

Many thanks for our suggestions.
Unfortunately the re are no details of the father given on my father in law's BC as he was illegitimate.
That was the reason behind the suicide. My father in laws mother told her boyfriend she was pregnant and it then came out that he was married to someone else and he then committed suicide.
A terrible thing to have happened for everyone involved.

Hello St Ives,
Hmmm. Bit of a cul-de-sac with no father's name on the birth cert. It wasn't uncommon for the name of the father to be omitted. But the bit more of the background you provided does give a clue as to the age of the father.

I assume the alleged suicide 'story' has been handed down the family? I say alleged because it would appear you have no proof that it actually happened. Similar 'stories' have popped up now and again and quite a few would appear to be an 'invention' to give some sort of closure to an embarrassing situation for the family concerned. While I haven't got a suicide story in my lot there's a couple of real humdingers, one quite slanderous, invented to provide a sense of closure to very embarrassing situations.

If the story is true we need to get some idea of age for the man involved. So I have to ask a couple more questions......
1) How old was your father-in-law's mother when she became pregnant with him? I think the already-married-man would likely to have been a little older.
2) Was his name handed down through the family? If it wasn't, where did it come from?

Finally, I have to say that while you might end up with a couple of possibles, you may never find the 'missing' father. Only a comparative DNA test or paternity test would give a definite ID and in the circumstances neither are possible.
Hoping to help...
Dickiesam

EDIT NOTE: Misleading and incorrect information removed 23/08/09

Many thanks for your thoughts and help. Very much appreciated.
I am reasonably sure that the details are largely correct. They come from the sister of my husband's mother. She was the only one that my husbands mother stayed in touch with as the rest of the family disowned her.
Incidentally, my husband thought he only had one living relative, this elderly great aunt, on his Dad's side, but via researching family history we found a large number of cousins for his (deceased) father and are now in regular contact. So the past has really enhanced the present!
Anyway - back to the missing g grandfather of my husbands. The one you found in Uxbridge sounds really interesting. I think he was older than her as - and this is only hearsay and less sure than the other facts - he was reasonably high up in the civil Service and the scandal would ruin him which may have contributed to the suicide.
It may tie in as her father was in the War Office.
If you could let me know what you found I would be really grateful.

Hello again,
Sent you a PM and after more 'thought' have just checked FreeBMD's coverage of deaths.

From 1930 to 1934 the transcriptions are 99.9% complete with the exceptions of Jun qtr 1931 (98%), Sep qtr 1932 (76%), Dec qtr 1932 (69%), and Mar qtr 1934 (95%).

Because the entries include age at death as well as where registered, if you go to http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl you can browse the results and select the likely 'candidates' by age.

In the circumstances you described I think it would be more likely for an older man to take the drastic course of suicide:

There are not that many in the time frame with an appropriate age so even if you had to check out 3 or 4 death certs it would not be that expensive an exercise considering what is at stake.
Cheers,
Dickiesam

EDIT NOTE: Misleading and incorrect information removed 23/08/09

dickiesam wrote: EDIT: PS: Re 1) Did a quickish search for death of a John Lawrence between 1930 and 1935 with age at death between 25 and 35 and found 5 countrywide, including a John H in Uxbridge. I assumed that age span to allow for a previous marriage and a guestimate that he would be slightly older than the woman. I'll post the results if you wish to continue the quest.

also

dickiesam wrote: Deaths Mar 1930: Lawrence, John H - 51 - Norwich - 4b - 177.

sorry i'm confused are we searching for Seymour or Lawrence I was going through the census looking for likely candidates in 1901 as a child maybe

Where does Lawrence come in, have i missed something


Simone x

Hi Simone,
No, you didn't miss something. I did! Where on earth did I get the Lawrence from? Apologies all round especially to St Ives for the misleading info I have posted and now removed. Will start again, this time with Seymour most definitely.
Cheers,
Dickiesam

Phew thank goodness for that, thought I was losing it altogether

Simone x

Hi St Ives

Do you have a copy of your husbands grandfathers marriage certificate? This will give his full name and his age which will help us to narrow down the search.

="stives.
He was either Hugh or John Hugh Seymour and he died either late 1931 0r early 1932.
Best wishes

Hi Katie

Stives doesn't know who the grandfather was, that is why she is searching, all she has is the possible name above

Simone x

Hi Stives

I've been looking at the census for possible Mr Seymour as a child. There are possibles of a John H Seymour but think we are clutching at straws really without a definite bit of info

Simone x

Just a word of warning to all.

Katie's suggestion was a perfectly valid one, if the father's name wasn't given on the marriage certificate then the person themselves weren't aware of who his father was.

If his mother was still living at this time and didn't tell the child, the aunt's information might well have been a story told to the family to save face. How many stories have been told that the father was "somebody famous" and married already so not available, or even better still - somebody who had just died since they can't answer back.

Without a shred of evidence somebody is being looked for here and we have arrived at a point of naming some well known men who just might be googled for. If one of his legitimate children came across this post there could well be problems.

Hi Mary

Yes I have just been thinking the same thing so I have altered my previous post. It's all a bit too recent isn't it

Very sad situation all round but without one definite bit of info too sensitive to go on looking really, and as you say there may be other family around.

Simone x

HI all,
Following my big mistake with names did a check on the correct one and there are no deaths that fit the age and time frame. To reiterate what MaryA has just posted I repeat a paragraph I posted earlier:

I assume the alleged suicide 'story' has been handed down the family? I say alleged because it would appear you have no proof that it actually happened. Similar 'stories' have popped up now and again and quite a few would appear to be an 'invention' to give some sort of closure to an embarrassing situation for the family concerned. While I haven't got a suicide story in my lot there are a couple of real humdingers, one quite slanderous, and total inventions to provide a sense of closure to very embarrassing situations.

I even did a trawl through the Times Obituary archive because of the "high up in the civil service" suggestion. Nothing there. Without some specific info it looks like the quest can't be taken further.

Dickiesam