Since I asked some questions about the above on this list a few years ago, and now have the answer, I thought I would post it for anyone who might be searching the name. The problem was that Mark Hall,a Colliery Engineman and my g.g.grandfather was in the 1861 Census in Chilton Colliery, but his wife Jane was in the 1871 Census in Etherley Dene, near Bishop Auckland, described as a widow but there was no Death Registration for Mark. I then found an accidental death for a Mark Hall, an Engineman, the right age, at Woodhouse Close Colliery near Etherley Dene on November 21st 1868 on the Durham Mining Museum website - he was entangled in the winding machinery - but still no death registration to match; I even contacted the Registrar at the district that now has the Auckland records with no success. Periodically I would try to find mis-transcription of his name, until I noticed last week that there was a death registered for a Ralph Hall the right age, 58, in Auckland in the right quarter of 1868. A quick check of the 1861 Census showed no Ralph Hall of that age in the area, and the Ralph nearest in age was still alive in 1871, so I decided to risk my seven quid and get the certificate. The result: 21st November 1868 Etherley Dean (sic); Ralph Hall, Male, 58 years, Engineman in a Colliery, Cause of Death - I won't reproduce this, it is unexpectedly gruesome, matches the Durham Mining Museum entry and I certainly don't want to see the Inquest even if it is available - Information received from Thomas Dean, Deputy Coroner for Darlington Ward Durham. Inquest held on the Twenty-Third November 1868. When Registered, Thirtieth November 1868, Thomas Robson, Deputy Registrar. There is no possible doubt that this refers to Mark, and since the Durham Mining Museum got the right name from the Mine Inspector's Report I think one can assume the Inquest would have been in the correct name, and it got corrupted somewhere between the Inquest and the Registration. It may be significant that the actual Registration was so long after the Inquest, and probably well after the funeral, and I doubt if any of his family ever saw the Death Certificate. With hindsight I should have noticed this earlier, but Hall is such a common name, and there are 407 deaths of them in the last quarter of 1868, 49 of them in Co. Durham, and I was looking for something that could have been a likely mistranscription of the name Mark. Moral - never give up searching. Adrian