Birth/Death certificate

[Gurslad]

Been into my tree for years but I've come up on a problem. A relation had 3 children die in the 1940s,I would think they all died at birth. But I have one of them has birth details but with no death details. I thought I would get a birth certificate to make sure he was born to the right family. I filled in the form but when I put in the page number it wouldn't except it as the number was more than 6 numbers. The number is 135/6473/s. I now think this may be a still born baby and the Birth & Death are linked. There is know one from the family alive so know one to ask. Anybody come across this.
Jim

[Alexander.]

I am assuming this question applies to England and Wales?

It will not be a stillbirth - they have their own register and are not found in the birth/death indexes. It is not unusual to see page numbers that reference other years/quarters (the 's' may represent September qtr), though this is not a format I recognize, therefore it would be useful to see the entire entry (PM sent).

Alexander

[Alexander.]

Having looked at the original I don't have any good suggestions to explain it. It is strange there is no corresponding death entry, if you are certain he died. Perhaps you are right and it was a stillbirth that was incorrectly issued a birth certificate - mistakes happen.

I think the only way to know would be to order the certificate. When ordering I would enter the page number as 135, since the other numbers were handwritten into the index later, and the entry will still be on that page of the register. If you call the GRO they might be able to provide an explanation for the numbers or advise how to order the certificate.

Alexander

[Gurslad]

I've emailed GRO for info on John & his sister Sandra born & died 1949 but the age is shown as 23!. If she was 23 then the mother was 12 years old!.
Jim

[BumbleB]

I'm currently transcribing for FreeBMD and I think that page 135 should have been crossed out, leaving 6473/S.  OK - I'm doing 1969 marriages at the moment, so not ever so sure about births, but the norm (in my experience) seems to be that the original page number is superseded by the corrected "page".

[arthurk]

I can't do any checking on this because I don't have any names or dates for the original entry, but having seen the clip of the index, I wonder if it's trying to cross reference to 5a 64 in Sept qtr 1973. Just a thought...

Arthur

[dawnsh]

Hi Jim

The original entry in the index was 5a 135

At some point after the initial registration, there was an amendment to the original entry and the entry should read 5a 6473/s

However, whenever you want a cert from the GRO and the index is incorrect in some way, you must always enter what is writtern on the image, not in the trancsription or what you think the entry should be. It will be down to the GRO to supply the cert against their index whether it is right or wrong.

If their system won't accept what is written in the index, then order the cert without using the GRO reference, their system defaults to 'No' 'the GRO ref is not known' and you can order the cert without the number by quoting his parents names.

If you want to purchase a copy of that birth cert for John and entry 135 has been superseded by 6473/s, the GRO will send you what is on 6473/s as entry 135 is in effect voided by the later entry unless there is now a block on supplying the cert.

As to the death of Sandra, I don't know how true this might be but her age at death could have been 23days or 23hours and when the GRO index was compiled the 'days' or 'hours' was omitted leaving her age as 23.

The GRO are very helpful and according to your profile you are UK based so give them a call on 0300 123 1837 and discuss the superseded birth entry with them and they will take your order over the phone with payment by debit/credit card.

[Alexander.]

The entry was from 1943 so it is unlikely to be referencing September 1973, though the thought did cross my mind.

Also, page numbers in the 6000s are far above the expected range for that district, or any district for that matter, therefore I don't think it is a simple case of cross referencing to another page.

Alexander

[Gurslad]

I'll wait until I get a reply from GRO. Been researching my tree since the 1980s and have book full of certificates but never come across one like this. I searched with every combination of surname and first name without success.They were living in Marlborough but the father originated from Yorkshire so tried Yorkshire without success.
As to Sandra born & died 1949 aged 23. I found the death record on Ancestry and that states she was born in 1921, but there is no record of this Sandra or anything similar in 1921.Usually when children die under 1 year they put age as '0'.
I found out about these children from their sister when we visited the cemetery as children(under 9) and she showed me these graves and said 'Mum had twins and they died', not twins but there were 3 graves. My older sister remembers the white coffins.Sadly she died so can't ask her.
My cousin and I were born when'children should be seen and not heard' so no info was shared. My cousins mother Aunt Sally died in the 1980s and I went to the funeral, when I was looking at the flowers I though I was looking at the wrong ones because some had Sarah on them. That's when I found out Sally is also a name for Sarah. So the secrets were still going in the 80s. Can't ask my favourite cousin as she died in her early 30s.
But I'll keep going, still love doing it.
Jim