In a message dated 15/01/2004 21:20:53 GMT Standard Time, nancylong@comcast.net writes: > Need help in how to locate death record for Charles RILEY who appears with > his family on the 1851 Durham, England census in Ebchester Parish, residence > East Law (?). Wife Ellen RILEY is listed as head of household on 1861 > census, St Johns Parish, living at 124 Park St., Darlington, with her > children Julia, Catherine, Marie, George. Also in household are Catherine > MULLEN, grandmother and Margaret HAMILTON, > lodger. I feel Charles may have died between 1851 and 1861 as he does not > appear in later immigration records with the rest of the family. Appreciate > suggestions What was Ellen's marital status in 1861? If it was "widow", then presumably her husband had died by then. What you need to do is (a) seek the reference to the death certificate via FreeBMD (you never know your luck!) and if you cannot find any likely one (ages are not given in the indexes during the 1850s) you will need to get sight of the GRO Quarterly indexes of all deaths in England and/or Wales for the whole period between the censuses (41 indexes) and find him in one of them. If you would be happy with a burial record rather then a death one then you might like to trawl through the registers of the likely churches and municipal cemeteries for that period. The Cemeteries Act was passed about half-way through it, so you would need to take both sorts of burying place into consideration. Other possibilities are (if he was affluent enough) to seek a Will (but the whole system of Probate Courts changed from the mediaeval one to the modern one in 1858), or you could seek something about him in local newspapers - again, there is not likely to be any death notice etc, so his death would only be mentioned if it was the subject of a news story - killed in an accident, perhaps, with a Coroners' Inquest held on the body. You have mentioned two places, Ebchester and Darlington St John's parish, which are at opposite ends of Co Durham. Leaving aside the question of why he should move from one to the other, as you do not mention his occupation, you must take in to consideration that the family may have had several moves, stoppinig off at various places between those two extremes and he could have died at any of them. For that reason I would recopmmend the GRO way forward, as you are covering the whole of the country in one go. Incidentally, East Law is now a small housing development (between the Wars, I'd say from the look of them) about mid-way between Ebchester and S hotley Bridge, on the A694 road. Best wishes, Geoff Nicholson 57 Manor Park, Concord, WASHINGTON, Tyne & Wear NE37 2BU (0191 417 9546) Professional Genealogist - Northumberland and Co Durham.