Genealogy Chat

Just wanted to share this sad information with someone please. My great great uncle and aunt who lived in Newcastle upon Tyne lost a baby and a two year old in 1911, and then a further child in 1912. Were conditions just so bad in those days or could there have been another factor in these deaths ?
Marie x

Living conditions were bad and TB was still very rifeLots of families shared rented rooms in a house so multilple occupancy was still the norm in inner city living

I have a relative who on the 1911 census stated he & his wife had had 15 children of which 10 had died, I have checked this out & all died in infancy

don't want to cast aspersions but the Martin Freeman programme on WDYTYA had a very interesting bit about syphillis and the effect on children, many children born to syphillitic parents "failed to thrive" and it was apparently usual for most or all children born to the couple to die in infancy for a period of 4-5 years and then they often went on to have healthy children

thanks for the replies, I actually seen that programme yeah and that had crossed my mind I must admit ! Think I will have to get the death certs to know for sure x

My G grandfather had 13 children, of whom only 4 lived beyond a few days. He was supposedly not "poor" compared to some but his wife was a lot younger than him and probably didn't cope well with a pregnancy every year. No surprising that she died in childbirth in 1910.

I was always told my g grandfather was a good Catholic fella, now I am not so sure.

Margaret

Makes you wonder, Margaret, perhaps she had a bad time giving birth to one (say, she could have lost a lot of blood or it was a big baby and she was small) and then she fell pregnant again almost immediately - I bet that sort of thing could have a bad impact.

It doesn't always hold true of course.


OH's gt gt grandparents had 20 children between 1832 and 1860

The first was born 5 months after they got married.

ALL the children lived to adulthood .... although there is a family story hat there might have been a 21st child born between no 19 and no 20. I cannot find any proof of this.

They both died in 1869, 6 weeks apart. He died of "disease of the kidneys", and she died 6 weeks later of "chronic disease of the heart"


No wonder she had chronic heart disease!!!


They were reasonably well off ......... he was a farmer and sometime miller in Westmorland.


sylvia

Yeah, makes you wonder. My g grandfather remarried within 2 months of his little wife dying (I suppose he needed a mother for the children), and the sensible woman had no children with him!

It is just sad to see all those babies in the graveyard, and as his first wife died so young, the 4 surviving children thought his second wife was their mother (and apparently she was a good mother), and they hardly knew about his first wife.

I had the CWGC amend the record for the death of the son (with whom she died in childbirth), as it showed the second wife as his mother. I got them to amend it to the first wife, and add "stepson" of the second wife. I did check that the second wife had no living relatives who might object before I made the amendment, as I wouldn't have liked to offend them.

Margaret