Buchans of Borthwick

I'm a medical doctor so I find cause of death an interesting and powerful part of understanding the past. But an individual's information tells us about something that might have been bad luck or random or .... But what if we could combine the information about why people died over the centuries, across family lines, in different places and whether young or old? We would get an understanding of the forces acting on the lives of our ancestors and their families.  While in Scotland I spent a day at the National Records Office in Edinburgh, extracting the information from all death certificates of the descendants of Robert Buchan b1813. When I go back next year I will do the same for the other siblings; George b1802 will be the doosey. Up until 1855, information on causes of death was dependant on either the clergyman recording this on a burial register or cemetery records. Examples of each of these from our family are: 1. Excerpt from Old Parish Registers Deaths for Parish 695, N...

Robert was 74 years old when a wagon struck him at eight o’clock in the morning on a winters day in January 1887. He died instantly. His wife would learn quickly of his death as his body was returned home immediately to Newtongrange, a mining village less than half a mile from the colliery.  Certainly a doctor was required to certify the cause of death, it being an accident. Two days later he was interred in the Newbattle Churchyard, now known as the Old Newbattle Cemetery.  Scotland has a system called Register of Corrected Entries (RCE).  Since 1855, all death certificates are issued  following a declaration by a medical doctor. This is the system we have in Australia. The death must be registered within 8 days. If the registration is delayed by the need for an investigation, then it will often generate an RCE.  RCE are also created about sudden and violent deaths for the same reason. As well, they are created for divorces, and any significant change about a b...