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Using the index for your research

The burial registers index can be used to find specific people - but it's also a dataset that can be used for other research. See the About the data page for more information about the index and what it contains.

Options for searching the index

  • Basic search
  • Advanced searching
  • Browse

Basic search

Use the main search box on the homepage to conduct a basic search on the index, using key words.

Advanced searching

Select the View advanced button next to the main search box. Here you can search on a specific field or a combination of fields. These are:

  • Name
  • Gender
  • Occupation or role
  • Cause of death
  • Burial number
  • Plot number
  • Mothers name
  • Fathers name
  • Occupation of parent(s)
  • Age at death (set a range)
  • Burial date (set a range)

For example, a search for the term 'consumption' in the cause of death field, with the burial date ranges set to '1850' and '1869', will give you results of all the cases of consumption recorded in the registers in this time period.

 

It is common for there to be variants in the spelling of names and terms in the registers. Also, there can be many different terms used for the same or similar disease, or occupation. A Boolean search will allow you to combine different variations of a name in one search, using AND, OR and NOT. 

As an example:

  • Open the View Advanced button next to the search box, to use the advanced search function
  • Type consumption OR tuberculosis into the 'Cause of death' field, and search
  • This will bring up any results which have 'consumption' or 'tuberculosis' in the cause of death field of the registers
  • You can do this type of searching in any of the search fields in the Index.

See our Searching Special Collections page for more detailed help on Boolean searching.

Browse

There are different options to browse: by surname, cause of death, or occupation of the deceased person; or by their mother or father's surnames, or occupations.

Under the Browse section, you have the option to view all of the the causes of death recorded in the registers in a full list. This is the same for the recorded occupations of the deceased person, and occupations of their parent(s).

Refining your results

Once you've conducted a search and found some results, you can refine these further:

  • Change the order of your results by choosing from the Order by drop-down menu. This includes ordering alphabetically by surname, chronologically by date of burial, and more.
  • There are four options for refining your results further on the left-hand side of the results page:
    1. By age at death range
    2. By cause of death (shows the number of each term present in the results)
    3. By occupation (shows the number of each term present in the results)
    4. By burial date range
  • You can refine results by opening the advanced search button and searching on additional fields or setting date ranges

You can also view some graphs showing key features of your results, by opening up the Charts of key features tab. Here you may see graphs showing the top ten most common causes of death or occupations in your results; the count of age at death; and the count at burial date.

You can then refine your results further by selecting a particular column on the graph.

Viewing your results

To view the full details for a particular index entry, select the more details link.

Here you will be able see additional transcribed information and view an image of the original burial register page the entry is from. You can also browse through the rest of the images of that register.

Your results will appear in a list of index entries. You can download your results (maximum of 100) to an Excel spreadsheet by selecting the Spreadsheet button.

If you are interested in accessing the whole dataset for your research, please contact us.