* Death with Corrected Entry

[soliloquies]

Hope somebody can help me muddle through this.

My great x 2 grandfather was issued a Scottish death certificate stating his death as "Fracture of Skull" and a register of corrected entry (RCE) saying "From injuries received by being run into by a motor car".

Is it best practice to treat the two pieces of evidence as separate, or can they be cited together in one death entry? I'm not sure whether to make 2 death entries (one citing the death certificate and another citing the RCE) or 1 death entry with a note about the RCE. Or even make a custom attribute called 'RCE'.

There seems to be so many ways to record it, hence why I'm wondering if there is a standardised way of recording such things.

[tatewise]

I would record it all in one Source Record but there is no formalised standard.
There are several real life events involved with any Death Cetificate from the death itself, registration, publication of GRO Index, possibly coroner hearing, and as in your case an RCE.

All the relevant details, dates, document images, etc, are best collated together in one Source Record and appropriate Citations created for each Fact such as the Death Event itself, perhaps a Death Informed for the Informant, etc. You could perhaps create an RCE Event if it was significantly later.

[LornaCraig]

I would create one death event, with two Sources. He only died once, but you have two separate documents containing information about the death: the death certificate and the Register of Corrected Entries. Personally I would not want to combine the two documents in a single Source record because they are different types of document.

In the Cause of death field I would enter "injuries sustained when run over by a motor car", and in the Note field I would record the fact that a corrected entry had been made giving this information, but that one of these injuries was probably a fracture of the skull as shown in the original death certificate. If you have images of the two documents you can link them to their respective Source records.

(I have followed this pattern in a case where I have a birth certificate but also an entry in the RCE showing the child's paternity).

[AdrianBruce]

Having checked my only example of an RCE, I'd agree with Lorna. One death event with the note to it explaining the issue of the two separate documents. Two source records, one for the original certificate, the second for the RCE document. The death event should cite both sources. In the note to the death event, feel free to explain the differences between the two sets of values - eg the different cause.

Creating an RCE event is probably way over the top. If you were transcribing entire registers and analysing the entire registration process, that might be different - but you're not.

[soliloquies]

Thank you everyone!

Decided to go with the 2 source documents and 1 death entry route.