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My grandmother died whilst giving birth or because of complications to do with this. If the child was unborn I guess there'd be no record but if it had been stillborn or died shortly after birth would it be recorded as having been born or having died? There seems to be no relevant record that I can find. (and my father was very young at the time and even now, 65 years later, it's not something I like to ask him about. (though given the era and type of family that I know them to have been I very much doubt he'd have been informed of anything to do with the matter)
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If the child was stillborn before 1927, there will be no record of the child being born at that time.
There is now a stillbirth record which, I believe, can be accessed by the parents OR a sibling providing proof that the parents are dead
From the GRO site ..............
Order a stillbirth certificate
Due to the sensitive nature of stillbirth registrations, only the mother or father of the child is able to apply for a certificate. The parent must be named on the birth certificate to do this. Should the parents be deceased, a brother or sister can apply if they can provide their parents’ dates of death.
If a baby took even one breath after birth, then it is counted as a live birth, and the birth should be registered, and the death registered.
To be honest ............. some people do not register the baby's birth because they are so upset.
Try looking in the next quarter to see if the birth was registered late.
Better yet ....... get your grandmother's death certificate, that will tell you the cause of death and may answer your questions.
sylvia
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Okay, thank you. It was post 1927. I'm just trying to rule out the possibility of a baby being passed off for adoption or the like. A birth would be registered as a birth with the real mother named as mother despite the situation ?
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This lack of registation doesn't seem to be that unusual. I don't think all babies who were stillborn or who died within a short time of birth were registered.
My grandmother gave birth to a son just after my grandfather went to war (WW1). Within a very short time he developed meningitis and died.
The child was talked about and his name used within the family. The eldest girls of the family would have been near school leaving age so knew all about it and passed on the information. We knew who had been born before him and there was only my parent left to be born after him, so just a small window to search.
When I was researching that family there was no birth under the name I had been given. I then checked, within a widened window just in case, all births with that surname and grandma's mn and found 3 births, my parent and 2 known siblings not the missing baby.
When my sister went to the family museum in our home town doing research on another of our relatives she told a lady working there about our missing baby relative.
She wasn't surprised, this is what she told my sister. Stillbirths and very early deaths were disposed of by giving gravediggers a few shillings. The diggers would dig a grave slightly deeper and place the child in the ground so a coffin would go on top of it. The important part to the parents was the child was in consecrated earth. No documentation and very little cost.
We also have a missing child much later on in my husband's side of the family. WW2, his aunt living in London was sent out to the home counties and gave birth to a son who died the same day. No first name ever given to us. Found some but only a few with surname and mmn and none that match with deaths. All involved now dead.
Have come to the same conclusion for both, they will remain a mystery.
Pat
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Just a note,
There are both births and deaths registered where the child was not given a name at the time of registration
These are on the index as male and female
eg,
male smith,
female smith
They are found entered at the bottom of any surname name after the last forename on the index usually after William
People tend to discount them but they are all a possibility in the absents of any other records
Roy
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WhiffingSiggs
Have you searched burial records for your grandmother?
There may be a note recorded that the baby was buried with her, if in fact it was actually born.
In theory, if it breathed at all, then the birth should be registered in the normal way, and also the death. As the baby's mother died, it would not be the family's priority to register the birth immediately, but the death certificate may have been needed before burial, so that may have been done first.
A look at burial records might reveal something.
Gwyn
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Agree with you Roy. No deaths of unnamed in the right area at the right time for my grandmother's son. I did check that. He was a live birth who lived a few days and a doctor was involved due to his illness. Grandma was told he would be blind, deaf and be mentally damaged if he survived the illness.
OH aunt's child is more difficult as we only have a rough idea where she was and I did an England & Wales check. It would still have mmn if unnamed. Believe that the child may have been baptised as strong church people and father was warned shortly after birth that his son had a heart defect and couldn't survive, he lived a few hours. Child was born in an hospital after about a 50 hr labour, mother should have had a section but left to have normal birth. Very nasty birth with complications and she fell asleep after being exhausted by the effort. Only had 1 climpse of son, he was dead by the time she awoke. No other pregnancies for the couple.
Husband refused to let her know where the child was buried, always felt he may never had been buried and was disposed of in hospital. He could have feared if he told his wife where the grave was, if he was buried, she would insist on going to the grave all the time and keep becoming distressed and not be able to move on. Husband would know what really happened but she didn't. She confided in me after her husband's death that she felt he'd been hiding something about their son, perhaps he had all the paperwork to get the registration done and just too upset to do anything with it. OH's aunt nearly died, she was in hospital for weeks, took her about 3 months to walk properly, makes you wonder what they did to her.
It was war time that may have been the problem, I'm sure that some registrations of BDMs were lost in this era.
Pat
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