death inquest

ksyoung · Post by **ksyoung** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:36 am

I have an 1870 death cert on a distant relative that gives the cause of death as "Fracture of Ribs 5 days". In the bottom line of that column of the entry there is tiny writing that I can't quite make out. Could it refer to some other document pertaining to accidental death?

http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayi ... ?pos=-1557
Link added by Paddyscar

Post by **SarahND** » Tue May 27, 2008 12:57 am

Hi
I see we're in the same time zone while all our friends in Scotland are sleeping

Could you post the image in the gallery, so we could have a look at the tiny writing? Sometimes it helps to get several opinions. Here's instructions on how to do it in case you haven't before:

viewtopic.php?t=6496

All the best,
Sarah

ksyoung · Post by **ksyoung** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:44 am

I tried posting the image. I hope it works - I guess we have wait for it to get linked.

http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayi ... ?pos=-1557

I see that in my haste I posted my query in the OPR forum istead of Statutory Records forum. Oh well.

Post by **SarahND** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:51 am

We'll have to wait for an Admin member on this side of the Atlantic to notice and okay the post. There are three of them, so it shouldn't be long. Of course, there's always Andrew in Scotland, who never sleeps and so may be along any minute also

Cheers from a beautiful day in north Idaho,
Sarah

Post by **AndrewP** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:32 am

Hi KSYoung,

I can only make out part of the small writing below the cause of death.

Precognition for ___-____ ______

All the best,

AndrewP

Post by **AndrewP** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:09 am

AndrewP wrote:Precognition for ___-____ ______

Hi KSYoung,

With some help given to me (thanks

), I now think it probably says Precognition for Procurator Fiscal

All the best,

AndrewP

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:40 am

It's the split over two lines that doesn't help .....

Precognition for Procur
-ator Fiscal

The registrar is being a bit naughty here, as he's not followed the rules.

Firstly, on two of the enries on this page, he has altered the dates of the registration (see the initials 'RS' on the RH side). That's OK if it was done at the time of the registration, but there should still have been an annotation to that effect in the normally blank LH column. But did he do it at the time of the registration, as one date was the 1st and the other the 2nd? If that was the case then he should have organised an RCE entry for one at least!

As to the precognition entry, presumably this refers to the fact that the details were passed to the PF in case there was a criminal act involved, but, once again, such an entry in the register did not comply with the procedures set down.

Surprisingly, there's no annotation from the Superintending Registrar who should have picked up on these infractions.

mb

ksyoung · Post by **ksyoung** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:45 pm

Thanks for deciphering this for me. This leads to another question - do the records of the procurator fiscal still exist, can they be searched, and are they likely to be useful to a genealogist.

I find it interesting that this death came to the attention of the PF, but another death in that family, in 1875, did not even though death was due to "fracture of base of skull - inflammation of brain". The death was on January 4th and I wonder if the man had made a little too merry on New Year's Eve and hit his head when he passed out.

Thanks again, Katherine

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:06 pm

ksyoung wrote:Thanks for deciphering this for me. This leads to another question - do the records of the procurator fiscal still exist, can they be searched, and are they likely to be useful to a genealogist.

I find it interesting that this death came to the attention of the PF, but another death in that family, in 1875, did not even though death was due to "fracture of base of skull - inflammation of brain". The death was on January 4th and I wonder if the man had made a little too merry on New Year's Eve and hit his head when he passed out.

Thanks again, Katherine

Check with NAS to determine the PF records that still exist. Not all do.

Those that resulted in a formal process such as a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) are well recorded. These records of FAIs can be found on the NAS webite with an index.

But it is the case that most events that led to a reference to the PF would also most probably have resulted in a report in one of more newspapers.

MB