To try to find out how my uncle died?

[Keke94LND]

So 18 years ago, my uncle died, I was 9 at the time.

I don't remember a lot about my uncle, he was very quiet, quite reclusive, he lived with my Nan pretty much until he died (he was in his 40s) I know he had mental health problems and possibly some drug addictions.

Since his death, no one in my family has ever really talked about him, I think it's mainly because they don't want to bring him up around my Nan, although in recent years my Nan has talked about him a few times. But every time she has I've been sort of shocked just because he is never spoken about. It's like him and his death is some sort of family secret or topic that we don't speak about, for some reason.

I have spoken to my mum about him and his death before, but she has no idea how he died, no one does, except for my Nan. and for some reason even though they are incredibly close, my mum has never/won't ask her.

I have always been curious of what happened, especially because it's a secret, WIBU to try and find out what happened? I am considering trying to find/buy his death certificate as surely that will state cause of death, the only thing stopping me is, is the next of kin ever notified if someone orders a death certificate? (I.e will my Nan find out I have ordered it? I wouldn't want to upset her

Hi again OP, thank you for your answer.
I think it's entirely reasonable that you want to know, as long as you accept you might not like the answer, and are prepared to keep it to yourself.

It could be your mother doesn't know (and doesn't want to), or it could be she knows and has never told you because she thinks it would upset you, or she wants to protect his memory/your nan.

I was in a similar situation in that my mother kept a family secret (actually she lied to cover it up and she was a very bad liar). When I was in my 30s I asked my gran about it. We had never spoken about it and my nan was a very private person so I had no idea if she would reveal anything - but she was happy to do so.

Obviously it would be a risk to speak to your nan about your uncle, even if you do it in the most general way and don't refer to his death. It doesn't sound as if she wants to talk about him but you could try if an opportunity arises.

I don’t see why the OP shouldn’t find out, if she wants to.

If there were sad circumstances, she doesn’t need to tell anyone who might be upset, that she now knows.

It’s easy enough to order a death certificate, OP, and nobody else will be informed that you have.

Dh has sent for dozens, , while doing his family tree research.

If she's mentioning him more and more it sounds like she wants to talk about him. I would just engage with her about it and when It feels right ask her what happened and say you never knew. It might help her to talk about it, but obviously be prepared to back right off

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

I don’t see why the OP shouldn’t find out, if she wants to. If there were sad circumstances, she doesn’t need to tell anyone who might be upset, that she now knows.

It’s easy enough to order a death certificate, OP, and nobody else will be informed that you have.

Dh has sent for dozens, , while doing his family tree research.

Thank you, I think I might do it. Thinking about it, I'm surprised my mum has never done it, she loves family tree stuff.. which now makes me think that she definitely must not want to know..

@Stillgoings

If she's mentioning him more and more it sounds like she wants to talk about him. I would just engage with her about it and when It feels right ask her what happened and say you never knew. It might help her to talk about it, but obviously be prepared to back right off

It's not really that she's mentioning him more and more, it's more than within the last 5 years she has at least mentioned his name a couple times, mainly when we've spoken about mums childhood

If you do order the death certificate, please be aware that it might not bring the closure you seek. The clinical cause of death is not the same as how it happened.

To give an example, carbon monoxide poisoning is a cause of death. What it does not tell you is whether that happened as a result of Nan employing a cowboy to repair the gas boiler, uncle lighting a charcoal barbecue in a tent, or connecting a hose to the exhaust of his car and running it into the window. To get to this you'd need the results of an inquest.

An inquest would assume that there was a coroner's referral in the first place. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that if he was known to mental health services - particularly if he was a 'frequent flyer' - that the cause of death was listed as something which wasn't notifiable simply to avoid the rigmarole of post-mortems and inquests.

It's not really that she's mentioning him more and more, it's more than within the last 5 years she has at least mentioned his name a couple times, mainly when we've spoken about mums childhood

I wouldn't be surprised if she's realising her own mortality and wants to make sure he isn't forgotten. Please talk to her when she brings him up.

Eighteen years ago AIDS was still causing a lot of deaths. Is it possible he was homosexual and contracted HIV? If so, your gran may feel ashamed
There were really not that many deaths from AIDS in 2003. Suicide rates were far higher for men in your uncle's age range, but it may have been something like a heart attack, aneurism, undiagnosed condition or an accident. The police often (usually?) attend an unexpected death at home but it doesn't mean it was anything sinister.
I think the suggestion to just open up talking about your uncle generally is a good one. If your Nan wants to talk about him, she will take that cue and if she doesn't, perhaps then you could order the death certificate for yourself. I am seeing your Mum as a similar age to me and I also cannot fathom how she truly doesn't know the cause or circumstances of his death.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

I don’t see why the OP shouldn’t find out, if she wants to. If there were sad circumstances, she doesn’t need to tell anyone who might be upset, that she now knows.

It’s easy enough to order a death certificate, OP, and nobody else will be informed that you have.

Dh has sent for dozens, , while doing his family tree research.

because the people involved don't want other people, even family, to know?

Tbf I don't think privately trying to find out the cause of death a family member is the same as privately investigating the rape or child abuse of a family member

I agree. It's just that when you get the death certificate, you will have to keep it to yourself a)that you know what he died of and b) that have the death cert. So, you will have to deal with your own upset.

The OP's Gran was and still is upset that her son died. Especially if he died by his own hand where he lived at her house. She may feel heartbroken that she could not help or save him.

Maybe she feels she let him down. Or that he let the family down if he died by his own hand.

Others are correct there are lot of illegitimacies, bigamy, rape, incest, homosexuality, prison sentences, psychiatric unit admissions, work house/poor house admissions, desertions, disappearances abandoned/fostered/adopted/dead babies across quite a lot of families in recent generations who would have kept their secret shame private if they chose to.

I have a relative who was sentenced to 12months hard labour for dishonesty offending in 1924. He later bigamously married his female accomplice (same sentence) who by then had aliased herself as Mrs Surname for about 20 years !

His child, a closer relative of mine felt the stigma of illegitimacy/abandonment for many years despite their parents marrying after the fact during the first world war. Their birth cert was left blank where their father's name should be.

When illegitimate child got married 'missing, presumed deceased' was recorded for the missing parent's details on the marriage certificate. Subject closed as far as the family was concerned.

(I've found death cert of missing, presumed deceased person. They died of natural causes in their sixties.) Closer relatives are long dead so it really does not matter. You can't defame the dead.

As a parent who lost a child I would be devastated if my family didn't ask me about them or talk about them. I. Sure your Nan would love to tell you about him. Why not ask what he was like when little - was he like any of her grandkids, what was he into etc etc and go from there.

I guess part of me feels like there was never any closure with his life/death, I dunno if closure is the right word, but what I mean is, one minute I had an uncle, and then the next he was gone, I've obviously always known he died, but I never knew why or how, I feel like it's always left a bit of a question mark for me. His death was around Christmas, and I remember that Christmas was a totally normal Christmas, in hindsight that must of been incredibly hard for my Nan and parents, which I probably didn't appreciate at the time, but I do kind of remember even at 9 years old, thinking it was a bit weird that everything was normal

I would leave well alone.

You say you’re surprised your mother hadn’t investigated your uncle’s death because she ‘loves family tree stuff’, @Keke94LND, but surely you can see it’s not ‘family tree stuff’ to her, it’s the premature death of her brother, possibly in tragic circumstances?

I mean, I’m very interested in the fact that my paternal great-grandfather seems to have been a bigamist, or not married to my great-grandmother, because these are not people I met, they died a long time ago — but I can enter into my beloved grandad’s shame when he got his birth cert to apply for a passport in his 60s and discovered it. To me it was just an interesting quirk of family history, but to him it was a shameful secret. Likewise my other grandfather’s incarceration in an asylum — I never met him, as he died when my mother was a teenager, but his MH is likewise an interesting family fact to me (two of his sons also had significant MH issues, and I wonder about inheritability), but a shameful secret to my mother, as is the fact that her stillborn but apparently full term elder brother was born only five months after her parents married.

I’ve discovered/think I’ve figured a couple of other things about my mother’s parents — I don’t think the stillborn baby was my grandfather’s, and I think his MH was probably PTSD from the civil war — but I e never told anyone.

One person’s ‘interesting family tree stuff’ is another’s grief or shame.

He had mental health issues and addiction issues. He likely died from suicide or overdose. How will that info gove you closure?
My dad died of a drug overdose. There is no closure. He's dead. I'm here. It never goes away.

@Verfremdungseffekt

You say you’re surprised your mother hadn’t investigated your uncle’s death because she ‘loves family tree stuff’, *@Keke94LND*, but surely you can see it’s not ‘family tree stuff’ to her, it’s the premature death of her brother, possibly in tragic circumstances?

I mean, I’m very interested in the fact that my paternal great-grandfather seems to have been a bigamist, or not married to my great-grandmother, because these are not people I met, they died a long time ago — but I can enter into my beloved grandad’s shame when he got his birth cert to apply for a passport in his 60s and discovered it. To me it was just an interesting quirk of family history, but to him it was a shameful secret. Likewise my other grandfather’s incarceration in an asylum — I never met him, as he died when my mother was a teenager, but his MH is likewise an interesting family fact to me (two of his sons also had significant MH issues, and I wonder about inheritability), but a shameful secret to my mother, as is the fact that her stillborn but apparently full term elder brother was born only five months after her parents married.

I’ve discovered/think I’ve figured a couple of other things about my mother’s parents — I don’t think the stillborn baby was my grandfather’s, and I think his MH was probably PTSD from the civil war — but I e never told anyone.

One person’s ‘interesting family tree stuff’ is another’s grief or shame.

Yes I think that was poor wording on my part, what I meant is, because she loves family tree stuff, she will know that she could easily get his death certificate if she wanted to. I have heard her before say she does wonder how he died, so it is surprising that she has never tried to look into it

This isn't family tree stuff you don't need closure because what closure will it bring you ? I think your mum probably knows but might not want to talk about it.

@Josette77

He had mental health issues and addiction issues. He likely died from suicide or overdose. How will that info gove you closure? My dad died of a drug overdose. There is no closure. He's dead. I'm here. It never goes away.

I'm sorry your dad died of an overdose, that's awful, but if you had no idea how your dad died, I think you might wonder? Like I said, closure probably isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what other word to use

@Mrsjayy

This isn't family tree stuff you don't need closure because what closure will it bring you ? I think your mum probably knows but might not want to talk about it.

Family tree stuff is the wrong way to put it, what I meant when I said that is that my mum would know that you can get anyone's death certificate and so it's surprising she hasn't tried to do that, but it's likely because she's worried about what it might say. If she does know, then she's never told my dad either which would surprise me as she tells everyone everything

I think it is very strange that no one has been told how your uncle died and I think it is very strange that your mum seemingly doesn’t want to know how he died.

Order the death certificate, you don’t need to tell anyone. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you wanting to know and you are absolutely entitled to find out.

OP, if family history is not talked about there is a reason. Part of my family fled South East Asia during world war 2. They were wealthy and walked hundreds of miles to escape into India. Some family members died on route. Sadly all have now left us but they would never talk about it. There are no records, one amazing lady changed her name and date of birth to to fight in the resistance (hence loads of arguments about celebrating her 80th).

Info is easy to find from public records.

If you find it, are you going to be able to keep it to yourself?

Your mum has - for unknown reasons - decided NOT to investigate. She has the knowledge/skills to do so and has chosen not to. Or has lied to you, again for unknown reasons.

There’s every chance it will be recorded as death by misadventure if drugs or suicide. It’s often difficult to establish intent to end life clearly enough to make that call. Just so you know. So you might still have questions.

@julieca

Just to add, I know several people who have killed themselves and clearly stated an intention to do this. The inquest ruled inconclusive because of pressure from a relative not to find for suicide. So death certificates don't always tell you what actually happened.

Coroners are surely there to find and state facts, not say what the relatives want.

If you do try to find out, be prepared for the unexpected.