Genealogy Chat

Hello Everyone again,
When I first started my family history in the early 80's, my sister who lives in Hull visited a Record Office in Lowgate, Hull and recorded some deaths for the Gardiner family which we were tracing. On several deaths the informer was named as James Myers (Joiner) Workhouse. When we sent for the certificate a different informer was on them. All the details were correct. Does anyone know why this might be?
James Myers seems to be an informer on quite a few deaths in Hull. The period I am talking about is mid 1800's to late 1800's I have found a James Myers on a census who is a joiner living near a workhouse in Hull but cannot understand why he would be the informer when the actual certificate gives someone else.
Hope someone can give me an answer.

Regards Linda :-S :-S

As it was the Records Office she visited, I wonder if it was not the Death Registrations that she was looking at, but some other record of deaths. Records Offices do not usually hold BMD registrations - those are held at the Registrar's Office and it is unusual for people to be allowed to browse through them.

Did these deaths occur in the workhouse?

This site refers to Death Registers kept by workhouses:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LIN/poorhouse.html

Hello Potty,
Thank you for your promp reply.

It was in the early 1990's when mu sister was looking. The office has since now gone and all records have been sent to the Heritiage Center. I cannot remember the name of the office but she said she was allowed to just look through lists of deaths etc. It gave cause of death and informer. Most were at the workhouse but I know one of our ancestors was drowned and he was one she found. Its a mystery. Unfortunately my sister is now in her 80's and cannot remember the name of the files she was looking through.
Its a complete mystery as to why in this case the informer was one person but when I bought the copy certificate if gave a completely different person.

Thank you once again.
Linda :-)

just a thought

could the records your sister looked at be burial records and James Myers (Joiner) be either the undertaker or priest?

or even the name of the registrar?

The classification the informant on the d.cert qualified under would be "the master or keeper of an institution"

The master might not be the guy who actually found the body within the workhouse, and the workhouse internal documents might record the actual finder's name.

The list of qualified informant classes was expanded later, 1875 I think, to include the person who found the body, and to include other residents of the house or institution, but the workhouse might have still preferred to use the master as the informant.

If the list your sister looked at had causes of death and names of informants, I don't think it would have been the Civil Registration Register, as this does not have that info. It only has the info that you can see on the images of the GRO registers.