* Recording an Inquest

[ADC65]

I may be having a Senior Moment, but I can't seem to find a Fact/Event/Attribute for recording the details of a Coroner's Inquest. I've looked in the Fact Types dialogue box, and shown the hidden facts. Am I missing it, is it called something different, or does it not exist? If it doesn't exist, how do people record it in FH? I know I can create a Custom Fact but it seems quite an omission (in GEDCOM, rather than FH).

[ColeValleyGirl]

I use the Inquest document (or a newspaper report of the inquest) as a source, and cite it for the Death fact.

My reasoning: the inquest isn't something that happens to the deceased individual, it's just a process of gathering information about their cause of death.

[LornaCraig]

I do the same as Helen. In fact I have a couple of cases where the only evidence I have that an inquest was held is the death certificate, in which the informant who registered the death was the coroner or deputy coroner. In one case it gives the date of the inquest, which was the day after the death.* In the other case I have no date for the inquest but there must have been a long delay because the death was not registered until more than six months after the date of death. I simply add this information to a note for the death fact.

* The hastily arranged inquest would not have been very rigorous (nineteenth century inquests were often held in public houses!)

[Jane]

My 3x Great Grandfather's inquest was held in a pub. Appropriate as he was suffering from the DT's when he had a "visitation from god on the brain".

Like Helen I use the newspaper report as as source and record it against the death fact.

[ADC65]

Thank you all. I will do that and record the source against the Death fact. I don't know why I didn't think of that, I suppose I was thinking that it was an 'event' rather than, as Helen points out, a document. Thanks for your advice.

[johnhanson]

I have just just stumbled onto what might be a rarity on the Ancestry website (mind has been there for nearly 10 years!) in the "West Yorkshire, England, County Coroner Notebooks, 1852-1909" and the database entry says it is about 19,000 records. It is the only one for the UK and there are only a couple within the rest of the world on Ancestry and only a couple with the US on Findmypast.

I say unusual for two reasons - the record office have obvious decided that they can be done but why haven't the other counties on either site. Or is it the fact that they don't survive. I remember talking to our local coroner over 20 years ago after a lecture about what happens to them "depends" he said. They are closed for 75 years but he has the right to destroy them after 15 years! So how many reside in other archives!

The question though is that it isn't a newspaper report of the event but the actual event itself - more details than sometimes in papers. I have been using a newspaper attribute to record newspapers for the past 12 years - hangover from the period that I had the database in TMG.

This is a large one-name study (38,000 people, 17,000 sources, 28,00 places) I use a single source for newspapers with the title as the where within, The text of the article is then transcribed into the note of the attribute. I had thought of using the Newspaper attribute but the wording doesn't work.

Anyone got any thoughts