Why isn't a central list of funerals.

[Worryabouteverything]

Someone we know very well. The deceased husband is the only contact we have.
They had no children.
Nothing is on social media. Nor in the local paper.
We only have 2 funeral directors in town and we have phoned them.
Unfortunately neither have any details.
We are now wondering if it's a direct funeral.
Any suggestions on how we can find out.

Could you try writing a carefully worded text message to the phone number you have for him, in case a family member has access to his phone? Could you write to the family at the address you have for him in case someone is checking his post?

Do you mean the deceased's husband is the only contact you have, or the husband is the one who's deceased, and you don't know his wife?

Either way, who's organising he funeral?

There is in Ireland. RIP.ie. Also announced on local radio stations.

I assume there isn’t in the UK because it’s a completely different culture surrounding death and funeral attendance.

Ask the husband? Just ring to give your condolences and then gently ask about the funeral arrangements, where to send flowers or donations, etc. They may be happy to talk. If you don't have a number, put a condolences card through the door with the same questions and your name address and telephone number. Or knock his door, or knock on a neighbours door if you don't want to disturb him.

it seems the trend is growing for putting bereavements on FB which does make life easier.
I know a lot of local papers issue weekly lists on FB newspaper sites too
as many directors are independent it would be very difficult to make a weekly list. Be ok if they were part of a large group say Co-op. our local one puts all bereavements unless otherwise asked in the window of their offices

There are websites like much.loved which have details of where you can pay donations/post condolences for loved ones and they will have details of funeral. You could search for deceased’s name to see if it appears

When my dad died, we didn’t have it announced anywhere. We did this because we wanted the funeral to be small and private, with invited attendees only.

Could this be the case here, OP?

How long ago and where did he die?

If he passed in hospital his family will get a "pre-death cert" cert which can quickly be used for the death cert.

If it was sudden and or at home the coronor needs to decide on an autopsy or not before any paper work can be started and FD will not act anyway so the family may not have contacted the FD yet.

Did either follow a Faith?
As church members may be in contact if they were in a friendship group or he could have been on a visiting list if he was sick or housebound.

I know that, technically, funerals are open to anyone, but maybe this family don't want that.
Or, as you say, it is a direct cremation, in which case there is no event to attend.
I have to say, if I were close to someone who had died, and making arrangements, it would never occur to me to advertise it publicly - I would just tell close friends on a "need to know" basis.

I think you have to let it go, OP.

A funeral isn't a legal ceremony (like a wedding) so need for it to be published, or even held at all.

If the bereaved want you to know, they'll tell you op. They're grieving and if you've not heard the arrangements they likely don't want you to know.

I'm going to a memorial on Friday - big numbers due to big lives but hardly any neighbours or hangers-on as they're just a bunch of nosey old busybodies.

There isn't 'a central list of funerals' because people are entitled to keep this stuff private if they want to. Some people like to keep funerals to immediate family only, and some don't want a funeral at all.

When you say 'the deceased husband' I assume you mean 'the husband of the deceased'. Why can't you ask him? Presumably you've been in touch to express sympathy, so why wouldn't you just say 'If there's going to be a funeral, do let us know as we'd like to pay our respects if we can'?

If you don't know him well enough to have that conversation with him, then maybe there's a reason he's keeping the funeral details to himself.

My dad died recently and he didn't have any kind of funeral. Direct, unattended cremation only, and we aren't having his ashes interred or any kind of memorial service. Various friends asked my mum and me if there was going to be a funeral and we just explained that no, there wasn't. It's perfectly fine to ask, if you have a family/friendly relationship with the widower.

Yes most of my family wanted immediate family only and no notice in paper or online. They didn’t want that info accessible

RIP works grand in a country of 4 million. In the UK you'd find yourself scrolling through 20 times as many funeral listings so people wouldn't take the time and it wouldn't work anywhere near as well. They could separate it by region or county, but that would still present problems eg if you had relatives in several counties or lived near a boundary.

Yes but you can search by name so no need to go scrolling through lists by county/region. It's so handy but of course the funeral culture is completely different.

They're only open to anyone if they're held at a church, which is a public place.

If the funeral is held at the crematorium, it isn't open to anyone.

A crematorium chapel is a private space which the dead person's family hires, so they can decide who is or isn't allowed to attend.

How did you find out he’s died?

Sad as it is or you when you want to pay your respects, it's up to the family to decide what type of funeral it is and whether they put out an official notice or not. Some people just want close family there (often the case with tragic, sudden deaths), some people might want to make sure certain people don't attend (if there's been issues with particular people in the family or wider friendship group), sometimes there isn't space at whatever venue it is, and sometimes people have direct funerals.

And also it can depend on how they died. If there's had to be an autopsy/referral to the coroner the family might not be able to even start to organize the funeral until 3 or 4 weeks after the death.

If he's just died in the last couple of weeks I would keep checking the notices. Don't ring funeral homes - that's massively overstepping the mark. If nothing appears in the death notices online then you have to accept that they've decided to have a private funeral, which is their right.

Good point.

I'd write a condolence card or letter and within that ask for funeral details. As others have said, it may be they want a small private gathering. Alternatively, they may have indeed gone for a direct funeral with no service. Unless you ask the widowed spouse, you may not find out.

People are no obligation to let others know when it is, some people chose only close family or do not have a ceremony at all. If you don’t feel close enough to text the bereaved partner then perhaps it’s family only/direct?

Can you contact the Registry Office? You can find your local one on Gov.uk

Five and a half million. Sorted by county, searchable by name.

It's about cultural differences around death rituals, not about numbers.

It would work perfectly well, but there’s no call for it. UK funeral culture is very different.

Surely all that’s going to tell the OP is that the person in question is dead?

They only deal with the death registration, not the funeral.
And I'm sure that, due to GDPR, they quite rightly wouldn't give out any family contact details to random callers.