Genealogy Chat

Please can someone tell me if a birth was in Crawley in 1868 where the registration took place. Would it have been in Horsham at that time.

Many thanks

Phyll

I think it was EAST GRINSTEAD until 1880 when it became incorporated in to Horsham

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/east%20grinstead.html

Roy

Thanks Roy

I have a birth in Crawley but, if it is the correct person, on 1911 census it says born in Horsham. Probably the wrong person so will have to keep looking for my man.

Phyll

Its possible too that the birth wasn't registered . there were no penalties for non registration till 1875 when it became the parents responsibility to register rather than the registrar seeking out births in his area

Thanks Shirley
Phyll

Horsham to Crawley is only about 5 or 6 miles

I don't think you can discount what you have found.

I live pretty close to Crawley and Horsham and as Jax has said their proximity to each other is close.

Nowadays the journey is all busy busy dual carriageway between the two towns (which have obviously grown enormously) but even so you pass by villages that would have been on the route in 1868, and who is to say that your ancester wasn't born in one of these villages midway between (some of which would have been Horsham reg dist) and chose to put Crawley as the nearest town he was born, almost certainly he would have known nothing about registration districts.

I was thinking the same Sue as I used to live in Crawley up until a couple of years ago. Probably back then Horsham was a biggish town and Crawley a villiage?

I think you're right Jax.

How hard it is to imagine Crawley as a village!!!

I was led to believe that, Before 1875 the registrar was responsible for seeking out new births and the birth registration, so in that context i doubt that the registrar registered births out of his/her area, this was the main reason that some births were not registered,

After 1875 it was the responsibility of the parents to register the birth within the 6 weeks or face the penalty

After 1875 if you turned up at the wrong registry office to register a birth the registrar would do the same as today, you would be sent to the correct office to register the birth,

It was also common for a woman to go to a relatives whilst giving birth, so the birth could be found in an unexpected district

IMO your problem really depends on how sure you are about where the birth took place

Roy

I was just thinking about when I had my first child....she was born in Havering but we registered her birth in Brentwood as that was where we lived. It comes up on the index as Havering though

Thank you one and all for your help. I have now spent some time looking at other rellies birth and registratiion areas and I have come to the conclusion that the one born in Crawley was registered in Horsham. A couple of siblings and cousins show their birth area as Slaugham but registered Horsham. I am going to send for certficate and hope it confirms this

Once again my grateful thanks to you all for your input.

Phyll

I don't know how reliable it is, but looking at http://maps.familysearch.org/ it seems the 1851 parish of Crawley was in 2 chunks. One lay between Ifield and Worth - now in the heart of Crawley town - and the other lay between Slaugham and Lower Breeding