Missing GRO Record

[JohninSussex]

Thank you to jonw65 and AntonyMMM I'd never have thought of trying a dash in the surname field.

I got nosey about this and checked 1861, by vol for death entries that use a dash. LOTS and that's just one year (see attached image, deaths only)
Boo

Births and Deaths are two different cases.
A Birth with no given name may be a child that didn't survive, or one who was registered before being given a name.
A Death with no name on the record is not necessarily a deceased infant.
It could be a dead body found in a field, a person lost at sea, a vagrant whose name nobody has ever known, or several other possibilities.

But if the register contains a surname, I can see no reason why that entry shouldn't be indexed as such.

[Jon_ni]

A Birth registered before being given a name to a married couple or unmarried mother should have a surname indexed whether they survived or not, even if the forname is unrecorded and not subsequently added after baptism & despite the fact there is no actual column for the child's surname.
Deaths of unknown persons in fields and at sea would surely involve a coroner, an estimate of age on the cert & a way of distinguishing from the infants.

I would have expected there to be a surname in the name column as in these Bentley deaths of infants in N.I. and Phil57's deaths, but it is unclear from RW1's reply whether that was the case or not.
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1915/05283/4467982.pdf
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1886/06244/4787702.pdf
If the name box was entirely blank then that might explain the double dash, and the period indexes interpolated from the occupation or informant's column.
Looking on Findmypast there were 4,239 male+surname deaths and 2,883 female+surname deaths 1861 = 7122.
There were 269 forname 'Female' surname 'Unknown' and 565 forname 'Male' surname 'Unknown' with entire pages handwritten as that in the original index images = 834 for 1861.
There were also 15 Unknown Unknowns indexed and some with fornames but surname Unknown (perhaps Fred the tramp). 888 in total indexed 1861 with surname Unknown. So 240% more in the new index than the old.
FreeBMD shows 16 Unknown Unknown deaths 1861 but doesn't count the number of results for you.

GRO say in FAQ's
Q10. What if there is a dash against details in an index entry?
A dash is recorded where the details have not been data captured in the index. Not all information will have been provided by the informant when the birth or death was registered, or in some cases the information may not have been data captured. In these circumstances there will be a dash against the field when the search results are displayed.

for comparison GRONI state the following
Illegible names
There are several reasons why names may not have been recorded for example if the name is illegible and has been impossible to capture for the index. In these cases ‘not captured’ has been inserted to allow searching. ...
It is also common in the case of older records that a birth was registered before the forename of the child was agreed. In these cases ‘not captured’, together with the surname, may help you find the record.
This will also be the case for the forenames and surnames of some foundlings (an abandoned baby where the parents are unknown).
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/search-gronis-online-records

[Dundee]

Last year we had a thread where an indexed birth couldn't be found in the GRO indexes.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=860372.0

Having found that only one of the 9 FreeBDM indexed births for that district/quarter/vol/page appeared in the GRO indexes, I submitted corrections for the other 8 and the answer was 'Investigated - no amendment required'

These are the 9 entries on FreeBMD

Births Sep 1838

DUNN    Aaron        Woodbridge    12   438    
GOODING    John         Woodbridge    12   438    
HUBBARD    Aaron         Woodbridge    12   438    
LINSTEAD    Mary Ann         Woodbridge    12   438    
MARSH    Samuel         Woodbridge    12   438    
SHEMING    Hannah         Woodbridge    12   438    
STARKS    Henry         Woodbridge    12   438    
WOODS    Male         Woodbridge    12   438    
WRIGHT    John    Woodbridge    12   438 does appear in the GRO indexes

I decided to try the wildcard * with each letter of the alphabet in male and female searches, sometimes it works, sometimes not.  These are the results:

Male search

E,  -       W     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

F, MARY        M     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

G,  -       -     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

H, U        ST     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

J, -        H     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

T, L        S     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

W, SAMUEL        G     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

Y, H        J     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

Female search

B,  -       -     
GRO Reference: 1838  S Quarter in WOODBRIDGE  Volume 12  Page 438

I have no idea what is going on here.  Surely all of those names are not illegible on the documents and if they are, do they not have a system where these entries are passed on to a second or third indexer?  Why did they not amend the indexes when I submitted the enquiry, could they not read them either?

I hate complaining about things that are good but this is stretching the friendship a bit far 

Debra 

[josey]

Phew what a project, well done.

[Tickettyboo]

A Death with no name on the record is not necessarily a deceased infant.
It could be a dead body found in a field, a person lost at sea, a vagrant whose name nobody has ever known, or several other possibilities.

But if the register contains a surname, I can see no reason why that entry shouldn't be indexed as such.

I agree and am trying to understand how this indexing has been done in the hope that I can possibly get round it if all else fails and find the entry I may need to get the register image.

I did a search for Deaths surname -, male, Q1 1861, vol 1a, its a small sample but I just want to get an idea of what I can find out

GRO online gives 18 results
6 are age not known
1 is age 12
11 are age 0

I checked the refs on Free BMD
All 18 have forename as Male

4 have surname Unknown and correspond to age unknown entries
14 have surnames recorded,
   2 of which match to age unknown entries
   1 matches the age 12 entry
   remaining 11 all match age 0 entries

Boo

[jonwarrn]

There are some entries as well with an ellipsis (three dots) in the surname field, rather more births than deaths in 1861. I think this is when the transcriber cannot read the name