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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: bagpuss1971 on Friday 02 April 10 14:34 BST (UK)
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:)Hello,I have a query,I hope someone can give me some advice!
A friend of the family gave birth to a girl 10th June 1971,she hasn't really spoken much about it until now.All she has is a receipt for £4,to cover funeral costs,dated 9th July 1971.I have done a quick search on the surname, XXX but I haven't come across anything yet - still getting to grips with it!!!
She doesn't even know is she was alive or stillborn,she was apparently deformed and the nurses just took her away immediately.She has expressed her wish recently to find out what happened to her baby,so I am trying to help her.
I am presuming that if she has a receipt for a funeral,that there would be a death certificate,can anyone shed some light on that please?
Also,if the baby was stillborn,how is that registered - this would be great to know as my Nan also had a stillborn child in the 40s and I would love to find out about that.
She would love to know where she is buried,this little receipt she has says she was collected from the hospital in West Bromwich,so I thought she may have gone to the closest cemetery.
Any help,advice or ideas would be great,I do hope we can help her out somewhat.
bagpuss
Moderator comment: surname removed - please exchange such information by Personal Message or reply in general terms as this is quite recent.
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You could do a search on Ancestry or Findmypast for deaths of a baby with the surname of your friend. The birth would be registered in June quarter of 1971, or possibly the next quarter as the funeral appears to have been in July 1971. Of course, if it wasn't born alive, then there wouldn't be an entry in the birth register, but the child would have been registered in the stillbirth register. From the GRO site
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 you follow this link http://www.rootschat.com/links/07v8/ you can get full details.
£4 sounds very cheap even for 1971 and my guess, if the baby was badly deformed is that it was stillborn, and the £4 was to cover the funeral director's costs only. What used to happen then to stillborn babies (if they were not put in the hospital incinerator) was that they were put into the coffin of an adult deceased person, who would not have been a relative and thus buried without any notification of the burial place. I doubt the relatives of the adult deceased would have known anything about it.
Lizzie
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Hi Bagpuss - thanks for the PM
There's an interesting timeline here:
http://www.ayrshiresands.co.uk/history%20sands.htm
It actually makes quite chilling reading ... :'(
If your friend still has the certificate it might prove enlightening.
;)
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Thank you both for your replies,they are of so much help. :)
The link to the timeline is great,very informative.
I think I may have trouble finding my nans stillborn baby,my Dad has only got a rough year,but it is something to work on.
I tried to phone GRO for a stillborn certificate application form,for both my friend and myself,but forgot it was Good Friday!!
So much to take in!!
bagpuss
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My father told me he had a younger sister Margaret whom he thought was stillborn (1920s) He was about 5 yrs old at the time.
I searched on FreeBMD and found a birth registration for
XFamily SurnameX female, mother (XMother's maiden surname)
During the same quarter there was a death registration in the same district for Female XFamily SurnameX
As my grandmother's surname is quite unusual this had to be her. My dad was too young to remember any details other than the sadness of loosing a sister. I'm glad the family gave her a name as she is Margaret in my family tree rather than 'female'
Dad has no idea either what happened to his young sister. I don't expect the family talked much about it and dad's older siblings are no longer here to ask.
Angela
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Just for info,did you know that still births were not registered before July 1927.
Around the same date as adoptions became legally registered too.
" Still birth registration was introduced on 1 July 1927 to help protect infant life, provide a valuable source of statistical information and to give parents the opportunity to have their child officially acknowledged.
A still born child is a child born after the 24th week of pregnancy who did not breathe or show any other signs of life."
Carol
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Just for info,did you know that still births were not registered before July 1927.
Around the same date as adoptions became legally registered too.
" Still birth registration was introduced on 1 July 1927 to help protect infant life, provide a valuable source of statistical information and to give parents the opportunity to have their child officially acknowledged.
A still born child is a child born after the 24th week of pregnancy who did not breathe or show any other signs of life."
Carol
The baby I mentioned in my previous post died in 1927, so I have just checked when her birth and death were registered and it was the Jun qtr. Perhaps Margaret wasn't a stillbirth after all, but was delivered alive but died shortly afterwards. She obviously didn't get taken home as the registration district for both is not where the family lived but Birmingham which is about 12 miles away.
Angela
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Thank you again for these replies - I am really glad that you found out about Margaret, Angela.
That is similar to my Dad and Aunts situation - they know that Nan had a few miscarriages,then carried this little one to 7 months- he was apparently born and seemed perfect.This would have been in the 1940s.However,that is all they know.
I am grateful for the date info Carol,as on one side we have a few stillborns that an old Aunt has mentioned and I have found some burial records for stillborns of the same names around the same dates,but they were all in the 1900s,so am I correct in thinking I may never be able to link these babies to my family?
bagpuss
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Hello,
Just wanted to let you all know that we found the burial record for our family friends little one - she was indeed taken to the local cemetery, and is buried in a grave that has just babies in it,so that was nice to find out.We have the plot number too,and even though it is just a grassed area,it has put her mind at rest so much.I have also given her the number to apply for the stillborn certificate - so from both of us thank you for all your help. :)
bagpuss
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One of my relatives gave birth to twin boys in 1953. She was 27 weeks. Both boys were stillborn. She does not know what happened to them or if they were registered. I cannot find a birth or death. Would they have had to be registered? Would the Hospital have kept the babies as she doesn`t remember anything apart from hearing one cry then on waking up was told both had died. I would like to find out more but have no living relatives, who would know. Any info as to where i could start would be a great help.
Regards, Nicola
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Heathera 1940 See my reply at message 5. Yes by 1953 still births should have been registered if the pregnancy lasted longer than 24 weeks. I presume you are talking about England or Wales here?
Have you looked at the full death indexes or just on Free BMD (not complete up to that date)
I expect it might be a bit too delicate to put the names up on here,so PM me with the info and I'll see what I can find out for you.
See Lizzie's reply number one below about the stillbirth register,and the link to more info.
Carol
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Hi,
I am new to family research and wondered if anyone could help with a query I have about my Dads twin.
Apparently my Dads twin died at birth, I have checked for a death certificate but can't find one even though I know the exact date and names of both parents. As there isn't a death record I am assuming that the twin was stillborn and I don't know where to go to get a record of this - the twin was born in 1942.
Can anybody help please?
Many thanks
Rhian
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Hi Rhian
Welcome to RootsChat :)
Some advice from the GRO:
Current GRO policy on obtaining stillbirth certificates: "Due to the sensitive nature of stillbirth registrations, the procedure for ordering a certificate of the entry differs from other types of certificates. We will only send out the application form after we have been contacted by phone or in writing by the mother or father (if he is named on the certificate). In cases where the parents are deceased, a brother or sister can apply if they can provide their parents' dates of death."
Monica
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Hi
Just read your post and felt compelled to write. I work in a local hosptial and many years ago following several phone calls from women whose babies had died or were stillborn. Most of them never knew what happened to them and they were told to just go home and get on with it. After lots of research I managed to locate an unmarked grave that contained approx 500 babies, some of the names could be established from church records but those women were so pleased. We had a memorial service and a headstone placed. I have to say that is what I call job satisfaction. What area are you looking at?
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Hi,
Thanks for your message.
I have managed to get hold of the death certificate and the poor thing wasn't given a first name, it was a boy and his surname was Owens, he was born in the Ruabon district.
My Dad doesn't know what happened to his twin so I suspect as there is no mention of the stillborn twin on my Taid and Nains headstone that the baby would have been buried in a mass grave.
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Hi
Even if the baby isn't recorded on the headstone, depending on when the grave plot was bought the baby may still be buried in the plot or buried in another family plot. It would still be worth contacting the local cemetery that you think the baby may be buried in because stillbirth babies' burials are/were recorded in cemetery registers - cemeteries were run as businesses. It is less common pre 1927 for the burials to be recorded in churchyards but some church registers to do acknowledge such burials before the C20th.
Regards
Valda
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Hi Rhian
It might be worth checking your dad was definitely a twin before you launch into lengthy research....it is very easy to do - just take a look at you dad's birth cert - if he was a twin/ triplet etc, there will be an exact time of birth on the cert, as well as the date. As far as I know, single births have the date only on their certs, whereas multiple births also have a time.
maryd
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Thanks for your reply Maryd.
I know for definate that my Dad was a twin as we have the stillborn certificate that's how we found out the twin was a boy. I needed to make sure the twin story was correct so I wasn't researching a red hearing
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Hi
With a stillborn twin there would be no time of birth indicated on the living twins' birth certificate. The time of birth is there to show which was the elder or younger of living mutliple births. With only one child born alive that would not be deemed necessary.
With earlier certificates you can sometimes find a time of birth even though it was not a multiple birth.
'If there is a time against the date of birth then there was more than one child born alive at the birth. If however a mother had twins, one liveborn and one stillborn, then the live born twin will not have a time against the birth. Until 1926 there were no registrations at all of a still born child. Having said that, again the early registrations are not consistent. The registrar in the Eton district did not put the times of births of twins in the registers at all until 1845 while the one in Stoke-on-Trent put times against all the registrations up until about 1850.'
http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/births.htm
Regards
Valda
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Hi,
I'm new here, but have been trying,unsucessfully, to trace details of my stillborn twin.
I saw a mention on an earlier post of full death indexes - is there anywhere I can access these for free? I've searched both the free BMD, birth and death ones, but there is no mention there.
I will be most grateful for any suggestions of where I go from here.
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Hello Pippa and welcome to Rootschat.
Firstly can you tell us what year it was?
So when the people who know about these things, log on later, we'll have a starting point.
Regards
Carol
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Hi,
I don't think the stillbirth register is online or available for inspection.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Registeringlifeevents/Familyhistoryandresearch/Birthmarriageanddeathcertificates/DG_175676
Nanny Jan
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Hi
By chance I was looking through some old FHS journals yesterday (for something different) and found a reprint of information published by JGSGB (Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain) in 2004. They make the point that stillbirth means the baby is born dead. If a baby lives and draws breath after birth, even if it survives only a few minutes, it is not a stillbirth. So if Heathera's rellie heard one of her twins cry, then it wasn't stillborn.
JGSGB said in 2004, re Stillborn babes - birth & death certificates, UK:
1. Deaths of stillborn babies did not have to be registered until 1874; neither a birth certificate or a death certificate was required.
2. From 1874-1927 for a stillborn child there would be no birth certificate but a death certificate was required.
3. On 1 July 1927, stillbirth registration commenced and a stillbirth would be registered, but no separate death certificate required.
4.In 2004 the current position was that a baby was stillborn if born dead after 24th week of pregnancy. There is no separate birth certificate [which seems to counteract point 3]
In some cemeteries in Australia and presumably in GB, there is a special section for the burial of stillborn babies.
Dawn M.
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Hi
In the civil registration system in this country stillborns have never had birth or death certificates. Until 1927 there was no civil registration certificate issued. From that date a stillbirth civil registration certificate was issued.
The Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1926
"still-born" and "still-birth" shall apply to any child which has issued forth from its mother after the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy and which did not at any time after being completely expelled from its mother, breathe or show any other signs of life
This covers ceasarian as well as babies 'born' which is why it is described that way for legal reasons.
The requirement of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1874 is not about civil registration death certificates
"A person shall not wilfully bury or procure to be buried the body of any deceased child as if it were still-born.
A person who has control over or ordinarily buries bodies in any burial ground shall not permit to be buried in such burial ground the body of any deceased child as if it were still-born, and shall not permit to be buried or bury in such burial ground any still-born child before there is delivered to him either,-
(a.) A written certificate that such child was not born alive, signed by a registered medical practitioner who was in attendance at the birth or has examined the body of such child ; or
(b.) A declaration signed by some person who would, if the child had been born alive, have been required by this Act to give information concerning the birth, to the effect that no registered medical practitioner was present at the birth, or that his certificate cannot be obtained, and that the child was not born alive ; or
(c.) If there has been an inquest, an order of the coroner.
Any person who acts in contravention of this section shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding ten pounds."
For want of a better descrption the doctor is signing the equivalent of a doctor's certificate to allow the burial to go ahead. The baby's death cannot be registered for a death certificate because in legal terms no birth (as in the 1926 Act) has occurred for a subsequent death certificate to be issued.
Nanny Jane has given the link to the civil registration stillbith register which began in 1927. This register is not open to the public and never has been. You must apply direct to the General Register Office following the instructions in the link.
Pre 1927 occasionally stillbirths are mentioned in newspapers and in hospital records, particularly lying in hospitals, but really the main evidence is their burials. Civic cemeteries always recorded their burials. Church registers might or might not. As the C20th wore on and especially after the 1926 Act you would expect their burials to appear in all church registers. Attitudes amongst the clergy and the medical profession were slow to change.
Regards
Valda
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Thanks for the welcome.
I was born in 1953, so I would have expected to find some sort of record of my twin. I have no information about it as my parents who passed away some years ago would not talk about it, and there are no other family members around who might know.
I think it was a very distressing time for them as my Mom only thought she was having one baby. I was born and then they realised there was another, which was eventually born dead. The hospital said it was stillborn, her GP said the cause of death was delayed delivery.
I think I will probably try and ring the GRO tomorrow and see if they can help.
Pippa
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:) Hello Pippa,
After I had queried this topic here for my friend, we did find her burial plot just by going to the local bereavement services office,where you can access the burial records in your area.
My friend gave birth in hospital,so it seemed quite easy to trace the burial.
The lady said that there they kept the records of the recent stillborn burials separate,so she looked it up for us,we were given a plot number,there is obviously no marker, but at least my friend knew that her little one had been buried.
I hope you can find the record that you are searching for.
bagpuss :)
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Hi, Pippa, my partner is in your situation, having a stillborn twin. The administrative situation is that the surviving twin now has the same entitlement to access to the stillbirth record of their twin as the mother has. She knows this because she was the first, nationally, successfully to raise this issue, and was the first to be allowed access to the stillbirth record of her twin.
One related issue is that there is a lovely support group, the Lone Twin Network for surviving twins who lost their twin at any age, and who can share the effect that twin loss has had on them with other like sufferers.
Best regards