Where to go for help finding Liverpool death cert

[tinselvestsparklepants]

My great aunt was born in Shropshire. I have her on a census in 1911. In 1921 she was living in Liverpool with the father of her child. I can't find any evidence of a marriage certificate but in the census she has taken his name. By the end of the 1920s he (decorated naval officer) had emigrated to NZ and was married, and sent a letter to my great grandmother expressing his condolences on my g aunt's death.

I can't find a death certificate anywhere. Not in her birth name or any of her census names. My dad is really keen to know what happened to her.

What's the best thing to do when a death certificate just doesn't seem to exist? Help! Are there any Liverpool experts who might know where else I could look other than ancestry?

Just some ideas, you may already have thought of them...
Might she have emigrated - have you checked USA/Canada etc?
Maybe she formed a new relationship and took another man's name?
Is she on the 1939 register?
Mis-transcription perhaps? Try a wildcard, using part of her surname and *

Do you have the Childs birth certificate? If so what names are on the birth certificate?

Have you searched for a marriage in the 1920s

What happened to the child? could there be a clue as to the Childs whereabout and when the mother died?

Where have you looked? (ie have you exhausted all websites?)

I'd check lancsopc; I'd check the newspapers; findagrave; London gazette - you might find a remarriage, a newspaper report re death or divorce, a gravestone, a deed poll change of name (in that order).

I found a "Missing, presumed civilian death in WW2" aunt for my friend - it turned out that she had run away! She changed her name in secret then married in her new name, without ever telling her family, and lived well into the 2000s!

I presume you've exhausted all wildcard searches?

Thank you for these. What's lanscop?

Deed poll is a good idea- she gave herself a few different variations of her name. It did cross my mind that she might have emigrated but she left her son and mother - she adored her son so I don't think she would have just left him?

Have you checked on freeBMD.org.uk ? Try searching a much wider area and use the minimum of search criteria. If you narrow the search too much you could easily miss her. You know a rough date range, so try that and see what it comes up with.

Lancashire online parish clerk project

https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Have you looked at emigration records on Ancestry or FMP?

Shipping passenger records may record if she emigrated wither with him or afterwards.

I think it was fairly common for the man to leave the country first, get work and accommodation sorted, then for the rest of the family to follow.

Link to some advice on researching family history in Liverpool. There may be something there you haven't tried. Street directories would be useful but I think you'd need to visit Liverpool as they're not digitised.
https://www.liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/archives-family-history/family-history/

Records for Birkenhead come under Cheshire and lots of people moved between the two places. My g.g.grandmother separated from her husband, took the ferry across the Mersey, and bigamously married my g.g.grandfather in 1911 using her middle and maiden names. Liverpool side of the river was recorded as a Lancashire marriage but her bigamous marriage was Cheshire and it was easier to hide things back then. So much of my research has involved Cheshire records as well as Lancashire.

Emigration is a possibility and Ancestry has quite a good collection of passenger manifests that you could explore but they also show crew names and she could have been working on a ship.

I 'lost' another relative and found her on the census working as a chambermaid in a hotel on the Isle of Man. Her child was left in Liverpool when she worked away. Isle of Man records rarely show up as a possible match because it's a small obscure location. Similar with other relatives moving between Liverpool and Wales.

Is she on the 1939 census?

Don't know if you've tried this
http://www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/

Some of the Liverpool cemeteries have online burial records which are pretty good - have a look at Toxteth Park Cemetery records site (now including more cemeteries than just that one).