Genealogy Chat

i have just found out ..from a contact that there was one, and possibly 2 stillborn babies in a particular line of my tree. I can find no birth or death for either of these children,. The first baby was born in 1898 and was a twin, he or she either died at or shortly after birth. I have the twins birth but no sign of this baby. The second one was a stillborn triplet. I have found the births if the surviving 2 children in 1908, but not of the one who did not survive. Can anyone tell me if stillborn babies had to have birth or death registrations then?

The stillborn register didn't start until the 1920's, I may be wrong but I dont thing stilbirths before this date were registered. Georgina.

There was no legal requirement to register stillborn babies until until July 1927 so stillborn births before that date are unlikely to have been registered. For births after that date there is a link on the gro website but it is not easy to obtain a copy of a certificate. These can only be obtained by the parents or a sibling if they can prove the parents are deceased. Sorry I couldn't give you better news. Carol

how about if babies were born alive..but died within a few minutes of hours...both of these babies must have been near full term as at least one baby from pregnancy survuived

I think still born babies usually are near full term or full term. A baby not full term would be called a miscarriage? The baby would get a certificate if he/she lived once born and a death cert.

carol thanks...i have looked and looked and cant find them registered...so in a away that is not such bad news..at least it means that they could have existed and just not registered thanks all

'Deaths of stillborn children did not have to be registered until 1874' Ancestral Trails The stillbirth register was setup in 1927. Bob

Thats really sad isnt it - they werent registered born and probably often not registered as dead, particulary if money was tight. I just wonder how they would be buried at that time.

I try not to think about how they were buried as my twin was stillborn. As late as the 1960s stillborn babies were placed in the coffin of another deceased person being buried at the same time. I was told by a friend who worked from a funeral director that no record of whose coffin these babies were placed in was required to be kept. It's tragic.I had hoped that during my research I might find something to contradict that but sadly I haven't. Carol

I think a lot of babies who were either stillborn or who died very soon after birth were buried in the coffins of someone who the funeral director was burying at the time - usually a stranger. My husband's mother had a son in 1946 (the year before hubby was born), who died at 12 hours old due to prematurity, and we have found that he was buried with a 2 year old girl who died at about the same time. We don't even know whether my mother-in-law knew about this as she never mentioned it. Kath. x

Carol, We found the burial record for my husband's baby brother at the county record office. He was buried in a churchyard that is no longer used and the church has been demolished. We rang the vicar of the nearest church and he told us that he had responsibility for the Sexton's Book for the demolished church. We gave him the name and burial date and he looked it up for us and told us the name of the child that the baby was buried with. Unfortunately there was no headstone for either of them, but he did give us permission to place a small marker cross - if we wanted anything bigger like a headstone we would need permission from a higher authority. At least we feel better about the fact that two small children were not buried alone. Kath. x

Have you tried looking at Baptismal records? I have an indirect line ancestor who I found from the records office was baptised posthumously in 1819. I have no idea how often this happened. Jo