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Does any one know where or if you can find out how many children a ancester had when they were alive?
As they would not be on a census(if they died between censuses) .
Thankyou in advance Sandra
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The 1911 census of the UK had a question on it which enquired how many children had been born to the marriage, how many were still alive and how many had died.
There was no such question on earlier census forms.
If the family surname was an unusual one and the parents remained in the same geographical area it is sometimes possible to identify whether there may have been other children who were born and died between census. To verify that they were indeed the children of the person you are researching however it will be necessary to obtain a copy of the child's birth certificate.
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If the family spent most of their time in a particular parish, as most seem to have done in the nineteenth century, then the parish records may well give you that information. It can be quite upsetting to see how many children in a familly have died.
Unfortunately most of the parish records that are on line do not give all the information that is in the record, you usually need to see the image to find the father's occupation and the abode.
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Sandra!
In answer to your querie, i myself have come across this a few times & in my Grt/G/F's family i noticed a gap between 2 children of 4 years & i also noticed the 2 youngest were girls who did not have their mother's name, which was the done thing back then.
I had a look on Free BMD for the Family name for a Birth & Death of a girl with the name as their mother & also the County & area they lived in the previous Census & the next one & i found it!
Also, check for children as to where they were born as some Families moved around & then you will have to decide on the missing ones where they were likely to have been born, to make that final decision.
As Jonesy says you will have to send off for the BC to verify it then if correct send off for the DC if not mentioned in next C's as i did.
Always look for a pattern in names in a Family as they were named mostly after Parents, Grand/P's & siblings as well.
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Jonesey - re your Researching - I though the correct quote was:
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
I concur with the above posts.
It's worth checking if there's a local index - see:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd
Lancs BMD are retrofitting the mum's MS to some indices.
Unfortunately, so far, for Wigan subdistrict, they're only up to 1889, and 1878 for Hindley.
These were where my ex's grandparents lived 1901-1911, and from the 1911 we know my father-i-l had a sib who died.
My f-i-l didn't know of this - maybe his older sibs did, but they're all dead now.
The local reference for B's & D's will give the subdistrict in some guise (sim church for M's).
It might be made explicit (as at Lancs BMD); it might be a code - like ALS/BYK at Newcastle (leaving you to guess All Saints/Byker/etc)
I wouldn't be surprised if there's some local RO that uses some unguessable code - this is certainly the case for churchs where the regos might just be designated C1, C2 etc.
Also, the local index might give aod pre-1866q1 - obviously, a gap in births 1861-1865 can't be explained by an 1863 birth and an 1864 death of Frances Victoria Smith if the dead lass was 18.
We discovered a sister of my ex buried in the family plot (died a=2h) - my ex vaguely knew of this, but my sis-i-l did know of her.
We also discovered my ex's uncle buried in a common grave (died a=2m) - his addy in the cemetery records matches my ex's gran's 1911 addy - her 1911 says 1 dead child.
As Jonesey mentioned, an unusual name can give a hint - all the 19th cent Hesmondhalghs in Westmoreland are mine, but I didn't know if 2 infant deaths were my gg grandad's daurs or his granddaurs until the LDS transcribed their Kendal parish records.
My mum's uncle lived to quite an old age - when I looked up the GRO-index, I found he had my g gran's MS as a mid-name - Bagnall is not too common in Newcastle - so discovering the death of another male with the same mid-name and surname was strongly indicative.
When the 1911 came out, there was one dead child noted - (he did appear in 1901).
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Thank you all for all your replies I will check them all out.
RegardsSandra
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