Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2018 09:12:37 -0000

From: dorsetdead@aol.com

Hello

I've been gathering together as many Dorset death certificates as I can (for the period 1837-75) and have now transcribed them and set up a free-to-use website. The website address is http://www.dorsetdci.com - easy to remember as "dci" means "Death Certificate Index". As of today there are details from 400 certificates.

Obviously 400 is only a drop in the ocean. If you have any Dorset death certificates for 1837-75 please send me a scan (email them to dorsetdead@aol.com) and I will publish the information. I'm including everything on the certificate apart from the name of the registrar and the date of registration. The search facility means you can search for the name of the deceased, the occupation, place of death, cause of death and details of the "informant" (the person who reported the death). If you use the site and don't find anything, then do re-visit from time to time and look at the "Updates" page: that will tell you if anything has been added to the site since your last visit.

My own interest is sickness and poverty in the 1850s but I thought I'd cast the net a bit wider to make the site more useful to other people. I'm interested in the diseases people *lived* with and not just the ones they died of. Some certificates give information about how long individuals had their particular illness before they died - there are some examples of people being ill for 15 or 20 years.

Anyway, I hope the site is useful to others - and please send me scans of your Dorset death certificates. Many thanks.

Mark