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Heres a challenge for Janey or any of you other super sleuths on here!

Born 2 May 1887 South Leith Scotland. Baptized soon thereafter.
Then disappears from all records.
Her mother was my grandfathers first wife - Mary Jane Williamson - she died of tertiary syphillis in Lambeth London on 16 Sep 1897.

What happened to the baby?

(i know everything there is to know about my granfather and his first wife, so please dont waste time with BMDs or censuses for them- lol)

Theory 1- the baby was born retarded and placed in an institution (?)


xxxxxxx mick

Family story -both wife and daughter "drowned in Ireland"- obviously not true for wife anyway!

where was Mary Jane Williamson in 1891?

If not with your grandfather, where was he?


where is your grandfather in 1901? 1911?




sylvia

Mick you wish to know what happened to Jane Evelyn Winterton??

You are telling us that on all census information about Mary Jane Williamson and your grandfather between 1887 to 1911 the baby has disappeared.

You have the BDMs for grandfather and wife.

Obviously you have BDM for child's birth.

You have searched for a marriage and/or a death for the child.

Did your grandfather have siblings with whom the child may have been placed. Have you searched census info for them.

Did Mary Jane have family with whom the child may have been placed, same question.

I'm not very good on Scottish orphanages, is that worth a search.

If the family travelled to Ireland. Bother I don't think they kept migration details between the UK countries.

1891 census - Charles Winterton & Mary Jane living in Greenwich london, minus baby.

1897 Mary jane dies - have certificate.

1901 census Charles W (soldier) living in lodging house Maidstone Kent minus baby>

By 1911 married to 2nd wife with 3 children.

1891 census - I have for all Charles's siblings - no surplus baby.

have you tried searching on birth year +/- 2 and place of birth only?


Hospitals and asylums often list their patients/inmates under initials only.

For place of birth try town and county, town alone, and county alone




Have you tried searching under christian name only ...... she may have been placed as a nurse child and surname written down or transcribed wrongly.





sylvia

sylvia

Thanks for your thoughts Aunty and Sylvia,
it has given me a few ideas to try out.


xxxxxxx mick

Mick, I just had another thought. Two in one day!!

Have you tried googling the district parish registers. I know a lot of them stop about 1850 which is of little use to you.

There is this site which is part of the LDS. You may find some clues here.

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Leith_(South),_Midlothian,_Scotland


Edit. However given the fact that the mother died only a very short while after the birth of the child. The chances of the child being affected are very great. The results of such infection are not conducive to the child's good health or well being. Therefore I would agree that your Theory number 1 is probably the most accurate, unfortunately.

AuntyS

the mother died 10 years after the baby was born



and it may well therefore have been her husband who infected her


she might have been symptom free in 1887


that begs the question


how old was she when she died?


what about her family?




sylvia

Hey! I suppose I should have called dibs? Sheesh, Mick, omniscient I may be, but omnipresent, I haven't mastered yet. I thought I was talking to Sylvia and AuntyS elsewhere, but I guess I was talking to myself, because they're not there, they're here.

Thanks goodness. About time you put your dibs in.

For Sylvia. I thought she only died 12 months after the baby was born. Was very late when I looked at it last night. I have those little squares on my forehead from falling asleep on the keyboard.

Right that changes things.

Mick why do you believe she may have been retarded. Ten years is an awful long time after a birth to consider that the infection was there when the child was born. Assuming the cause of the retardation was the mother's illness.

Janey, put on your Scottish kilt and think!

Tertiary syphilis 10 years later -- most likely already infected by the time of the birth.

Mercury drops in newborn's eyes have been used for a long time to avert blindness, from the fetus acquiring the infection during delivery. Apparently (google google) it had been used to "treat" syphilis long before the 1800s - but I don't know whether it was regularly used in newborns at the time; I suspect not.

So the child might well have suffered from the infection, which can also be contracted during pregnancy.

http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/4439_1206.asp

"untreated syphilis can cause stillbirth, newborn death or bone defects"

When you say "baptized soon thereafter" -- how soon?

Virtually immediate baptism can indicate the child was not expected to live. This was explained to me by the person who found two baptisms for a brother of a grx2grfather of mine circa 1820 -- the first "private" indicating he wasn't expected to survive, the second public when he apparently did.

wow - where did all that come from!

She died of tertiary syphillis in 1897 aged 33.. Her husband my grandfather did not die of it nor did the second wife or the 3 children of the second marriage. Am iIright is assuming that syphillis was totaally incurable in the 19th C?
I assume she was infected in childhood and was no longer infectious when she met my grandfather?

Aploogises about the baptism - the baptism record I have is for the 1st wife showing she was a member of the church when she got married.

xxxxxx mick

Anything else I've missed, I'm sorry.

I have just been rounding up goats for sale in 37 C heat,
and my brain is addled!


xxxxxxx mick

Mick


There were treatments for syphilis going back hundreds of years ....... but you're right, it was basically incurable. Arsenic was one of the commonest treatments.

One has to wonder where she caught it.

If she caught it from her mother, she would probably have been dead or in an asylum well before the age at which she married your grandfather.

Tertiary syphilis usually develops 1-10 years after infection ........ but it has been known to take up to 50 years


I remember helping someone 2 or 3 years ago, and the man's first wife had a baby and then died within the year of syphilis, about 2-3 years after marrying. He then married her sister ...... and they went on to have quite a few children. I cannot remember what happened to the child of the first wife.



sylvia

Mick

addled brain?


that's how I felt after helping my friend drench sheep in 27C!

That was near Mudgee 10 years ago!