A death notice provides details such as first name and surname, place of birth, nationality, parents' names, occupation, age, marital status, spouse's name, date and place of birth, children's names and informant's name and relationship to the deceased. Through the years more fields for information were added, although the basic death notice form remains much the same as it was 150 years ago.
Today, the Death Notice contains fields for the following information:
Surname of deceased
Full first names
Identity number
Nationality
Occupation
Ordinary place(s) of residence during the 12 months prior to death and the Province(s).
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Has the deceased left a will?
Marital status at time of death
If married, place where married
Full names of surviving spouse and his/her occupation
State whether marriage was in or out of community of property/whether accrual system is applicable
(a) Name(s) of predeceased spouse(s) and/or divorced spouse(s) (state opposite name of each whether predeceased or divorced)
(b) Date of death of predeceased spouse(s) Master's office(s) where predeceased estate(s) is/are registered and number(s) of estate(s), if available.
Full names of children of deceased (state whether major or minor or predeceased and in the latter event, whether they left issue and, if that be the case, the full names of such issue)
Names of parents of deceased (state whether parents alive or deceased).
(a) Father
(b) Mother
Name and address of person signing the death notice.
Dated at ……. the ……. day
Signature ………….
Capacity………………
Accuracy of information
One must bear in mind that when a person dies, the family is distraught and a surviving member of the family will normally be filling in the Death Notice. Informants such as hospital superintendents, acquaintances, neighbors or employers should be considered as unreliable sources as they might have little idea of parentage or place of birth.
Another problem was the language barrier and illiteracy. Hermes Brown, a Scotsman with a brogue accent from Glasgow could easily end up on his death notice as Earmace Broon if the informant did not understand his accent. An elaborate handwriting made matters worse and you could end up reading it as Emmace Broou. Slowly sound out the word "Hermes" again and again to see how easily it can be changed. Letters like "r" and "m" together would look like two m's or even "a" and "u" as well, so understanding and learning to interpret different handwriting is a skill all on its own.
If a child has died before his/her parents, that child may not always be listed. A common mistake is that one of the children fills in the form and omit themselves from the list of children. Also children that are married are frequently left off and deceased children are sometimes not listed at all, unless they had surviving offspring.
If the deceased has been married more than once, the first spouse is sometimes omitted. Often, the death notice states a females surname as her maiden name, even though she was married. The background and social standing of the woman played a role, especially in Dutch and German families. People also lie about their ages or sometimes do not know when and where they were born.
A good policy is to try and verify this information against other resources, or to regard death notices as a complementary source and lead to further research.
ID Numbers what they mean:
YYMMDD : Date of birth.
G : Gender. 0-4 Female; 5-9 Male.
SSS : Sequence No. for DOB/G combination.
C : Citizenship. 0 SA; 1 Other.
A : Usually 8, or 9 with no specific meaning now – see below for previous!
Z : Control digit
Values for A pre 1986 used to be: 0-White, 1-Cape Coloured, 2-Malay, 3-Griqua, 4-Chinese, 5-Indian, 6-Other Asian, and 7-Other Coloured.
