2 Young Rothwell girls buried in 2 days - any help gratefully recieved

[romawi]

Two of my ancestors Elizabeth aged 8 and Rachel 2 Rothwell were buried on 7th and 8th September 1834, whilst it is a high possiblity that they might have succumbed to some disease i was wondering if maybe they had an accident together. Buried in St Leonard, Middleton I hoped maybe someone could help with any ideas of where to start looking for information. pre 1837 so no death certificates I presume. Does anyone know what newspapers may have reported these deaths from the Middleton area? is there a graveyard a St Leonards that may have an MI I could look up?


The interesting thing was that after these deaths, the family had more daughters and named these new children Elizabeth and Rachel - a bit spooky but probably fairly common in those days?
Any help very gratefully recieved, I live in New Zealand and cannot travel to look in person

Thanks all

Sarah

[danuslave]

The interesting thing was that after these deaths, the family had more daughters and named these new children Elizabeth and Rachel - a bit spooky but probably fairly common in those days?

Quite common - and very confusing for us now.  Especially when children died very young and didn't make it onto any census 

Linda

[Billyblue]

I was answering the first post when I got a warning, and then it all disappeared!

Sarah, multiple childhood deaths were quite common in the days before antibiotics.

Some possible causes:
Scarlet fever (scarlatina); any respiratory type infection; any other infection even from a cut or scrape from children playing; malnutrition; appendicitis (the 8 year old at least); tonsillitis which could lead to the scarlet fever.
There could also be some genetic cause.

As Linda says, renaming children after one who has died was quite common too. 
My Dad's family (his grandparents) had three children called Robert before the fourth one survived.

Dawn M

[maidmarianoops]

http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Middleton/index.html

This should help

sylvia

or send me the names

[romawi]

Thanks Sylvia, i do have these details from Lancashire opc - however it unfortunately sheds no light on how they died. Names above in first posting. It is interestuing however that there were more than 15 deaths of children under 15 that month alone in that one church - not too uncommon to lose two maybe. i just would love to find out how they died.

[maidmarianoops]

hello
i was looking for surnames
sylvia


oops its rothwell i thought that was the suburb

[romawi]

Yes it is very confusing trying to find the surname Rothwell when so many times the place comes up in searches - very confusing especially as i don't know the area very well at all.

Thanks for all your help - I do appreciate it.
I did manage to get to Durham last time I was home in England about 3 years ago but not to Lancashire unfortunately.
Kindest regards

Sarah

[Joy123]

why not send for death certs?....my ancester burried 2 children on the same day in 1880's,  I sent for certs and they died of measles

[danuslave]

No certs in 1834!  (I just made a similar mistake on another thread)

Linda