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Death Place (on Family Search)

Posted: 02 Feb 2014 17:23
by davidm_uk
I have a whole bunch of Dearman relatives from the late 1700's all baptised in Great Wymondley, Hertford (a village about 3 miles NE of Stevenage). I've found the baptims enties in the Family Search site.

In the same web site

eg https://familysearch.org/search/collect ... id=1473016

I've found (I think) burials for some of them, the burial place is given at Great Wymondley, and for some of them the residence is listed as various places around there. However in all cases the death place is given as "Ayott-St. Peter, Hertford, England", which was/is a tiny hamlet about 12 miles away, just SW of Welwyn. There's a church there, and was at the time, but it doesn't seem to be a significant one, and there were certainly others closer to the burial place.

The people were mainly agricultural workers, and by then would mostly have had their own familes, so it's very unlikely that they'd all migrated down to the Ayott area.

I'm curious as to why this might be, can anyone suggest a reason?

Re: Death Place (on Family Search)

Posted: 02 Feb 2014 17:57
by AdrianBruce
Being cynical, my suggested reason is incompetent indexing by FS. The only thing, I'm, afraid, is to consult the original PRs.

Now, having said that, take this example:
Name: William Dearmer
Burial Date: 30 Apr 1837
Burial Place: Great Wymondley, Hertford, England
Death Place: Ayott-St. Peter, Hertford, England
GS Film number: 1951788

That film includes these:
Parish registers for Ayott-St. Peter, 1686-1911
Author: Church of England. Parish Church of Ayott-St. Peter (Hertfordshire)

This suggests the burial place was Ayott, leaving Great Wymondley as...? The residence? We're just guessing, I'm afraid, without the originals, but I've learnt never to take the various place names too seriously on FS indexing. Of course, if one is a chapel whose burials are recorded in another's register, then it's hardly surprising the indexers' and their instructions got confused.