Genealogy Chat

Has enyone ever found the weight of the child recorded on a birth cert by ther registrar? In the column 'when and where born' between the date and the place it looks like 6,06 lb. Is this a bit strange ? Thanks Trudi (the cert is dated 1838)

So far as I know, that would be extremely unusual. Under certain circumstances (e.g. twins, or in Scotland) the Registrar does record the time. Could it be 6.06 hrs? (which, I should have thought, would still be a rather post-19th C way of phrasing it) Christine PS - the only silly question is the one you don't ask when you would find the info useful!

Could it be the time of birth? This is recorded sometimes if there was a multiple birth but some registrars did it for single births also as a matter of course. Snap, Christine. Christina

I agree its probably the time - but it could just possibly be the note of a Registrar's amendment or correction - they had to keep a book and all corrections and alterations numbered and logged in the book. OC

Thanks Christine & Christina, As far as I can tell it wasn't a multiple birth, but that's a really good posibility - I'll dig deeper. At a stretch it could be 6,06.16 I suppose, but it does't look like time, although it follows with 'at no. 11 James Street' so that kind of makes sense........I think. Thanks Trudi

Is the cert you're looking at a photocopy? That, at least, clarifies whether/where any mistranscriptions might have crept in. Christine

Christine, it's a copy from the GRO. The cert is written in a distinctive copperplate style and the numbers in question are obviously by the same hand. It's not squeezed in either, but in its' own space. The more I look at it the more odd it seems. Trudi

That does sound very definite, doesn't it. Contemporary with the original record. It sounds more like the time - did you cneck to see if there were another child with that surname on the same reference (with the slight possibility of it being on eth next page)? Christine