Genealogy Chat

ive just found a little brother of my mothers in 1928, he was only 20 months old ,he had measles and the spots went away too soon and smothered his heart :o))) kate

This family history lark is very sad. My great-grandmother had 9 pregnancies and only raised 3 children to adulthood. One of them died aged 5 weeks. More recently, my mum at 80 is the only survivor of her two brothers and a sister, all younger than her. nell

How sad! I know that I could get a lot of information from some of the death certs I need to send for but they're for little ones the same ages as my own babies are now and I don't think I could handle it! Or am I just being soft!

Lou I feel the same on the Samuels side of the tree their are quite a few deaths for babies & children. After spending the day crying over a death cert for sucide im holding off ordering them cos i know what im like Julie

hi lou, no mother can be too soft, we fell bad enough when we lose older members of our families, but i can only imagine how my grandparents must have felt, tho i was only two myself when my nana died. kate

Kathleen PLEASE tell me it didn't actually say that on his death cert? I was once solemnly told by an elderly neighbour that her short stature was down to the fact that she had long hair as a child - 'it took all her strength', so the Doctor said apparently. Marjorie

One of the very sad things about the infant death certs I have in my family is that they died from diseases so unknown now that I had to find an archaic medical terms dictionary to look them up - illnesses that are associated with poverty, dirty living conditions, lack of nutrition, etc. All so preventable now. So RIP all those lost great-uncles. The girls seem to be made of sterner stuff. nell

Girls always have been made of sterner stuff. The survival rate for girl babies has always been higher than that for boys. Good old mother nature has taken this into account, and there is a slightly higher number of boys born than girls. Of course, nowadays modern medicine keeps more of them alive so that the boys can kill themselves on the roads once they get into their late teens. (Hope this has not upset anyone, just get quite upset at the awful waste). Tina

It really upsets me too. My gg grandmother & father lost 2 children in the space of 3 months in 1866 - Francis William aged 5 and Charity Annie aged 1. They then called their following children the same names as was common. Can't bear to send for the birth certificates but cholera and other diseases were rife then. On a different line 60 years later my nanan also lost 2 children - Emily aged 1 and James Geoffrey aged 4 but 13 years apart. I know James died of diptheria but unsure of Emily. Nanan still had his little boots and tiny shirt when she died 56 years later. Even knowing their names makes me weep! Debby

when researching my father in laws family I discoverd two children on the 1901 ,Dad only remembered having one sister quite a bit older than himself. Couldnt find for a long time any birth cert for the youngest child who was 1 yr old on the census.Her name was subsequently found on Church records & she was listed on the census by her middle name This resulted in finding her birth & later in July 1901 her death 2 days before dad was born!!!. So how so very sad to lose an 17 month old & two days later give birth. They didnt stay in the house where this all happened. Shirley

If only they knew then what they know now. My mother is 81 and is the first born and sole survivor of about 8 or 9 pregnancies my grandmother had. Most were stillborn and I have found no trace, but one lived a few days and I have the certs. All because grandmother was rhesus negative and grandad rhesus positive. A simple injection following the birth of first child sorts it now.

I had a brother who was 21 months old when he died back in 1969. I was almost 4 but can remember him like it was only yesterday. He was born with a hole in the heart and lots of other things which by todays standards probably could have been cured. The doctor told my mum and dad it was because my mum had caught whooping cough very early in the pregnancy. When I became pregnant I was offered every test going although they did say that what Steven had had wasn't hereditary. When my son became the same age as my brother I became quite frantic, totally unnessesarily, until Jacob passed this age and i then relaxed. It was horrible though as I kept putting myself in my parents shoes and wondering how on earth you get through anything like that. Nicky x

My husband and I are rhesus positive and negative,so know all about the problem, as you say one little injection is all thats needed,we had three children all born well except the middle one who had a lovely suntan when he was born(jaundice)but they were all fit and well otherwise Brenda