1911 Ireland census: Total children born alive partly obscured by crease

[kob3203]

Extract from "Residents of a house 6 in Ballykearney (Mitchelstown, Cork)" here http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Cork/Mitchelstown/Ballykearney/439527/

We know of 9 definite children (one born after the 1911 census).

When we originally started researching back in 2007 the family story was that there were 17 children in total.

Any suggestions for what the partly obscured number is ?

[Christine53]

deleted

[scatty]

 At a guess this looks to me as though it reads " 1 " with  possibly another missing digit " 1 " where the crease is making eleven children born in seventeen years of marriage with nine still living ?

Scatty

[heywood]

It should be 11 I would think because it must be greater than 8 as it looks like an upright digit 

Have you looked at births on Irish Genealogy?

I notice there are two Williams, so that is probably one death before 1911. If the number is 11 then there would be two more deaths to account for up to 1911.

[kob3203]

Thanks scatty and heywood - I'd agree that 11 is the most likely number. 9 and 17 were the other two possibilities I had in mind.

Yes, we have 10 civil births (9 pre-1911) from Irish Genealogy and one pre-1911 civil death (the first William as you mentioned), all in Ballykearney, Mitchelstown.

Nothing in the RC parish registers at the NLI since the Mitchelstown/Glanworth baptsims only go up to 1880/1881

[heywood]

I looked at the marriage - I think it was 1894 so the children named in the censuses arrive pretty steadily. There is a possible gap between Bridget and William- 5 yrs and 2 yrs in 1911.
There may have been stillbirths or miscarriages that weren't recorded but Bridget considered them as births, even though that wouldn't comply with the wording.
Alternatively, it could be a '1' meaning one child had died.

[josey]

I agree 11 is the most likely.

So the 9 known children are from 1901 & 1911 censuses. Then you say there was one born after 1911 so that's 10.  Biggest gap is between Bridget 5 & William 2 in 1911 so would concentrate a search there. Perhaps there were twins at some stage and 1 or both died ?

SNAP Heywood - red writing as I posted 

[kob3203]

Thanks again heywood and josey.

The nine living children were all known to my aunt - Maggie, Mick, Billy, Nell, Jack, Jim, Bid, Joe and Ted. The 1901 and 1911 censuses (and the civil birth records we found) seem to confirm these names.

Yes, the marriage was 3 Feb 1894 (civil record). My Irish Genealogy searches only turned up 10 births total between 1893 and 1920 that match this couple.  (I always check for a possible illegitimate birth before the marriage, and although Ted, b. 1912, was the youngest I also checked for the possibility of an even younger child who didn't survive).

I've attached a screenshot of what I've put on Ancestry.co.uk for this family for aclearer overview of what we have. I've included the grandparents to show that the naming of the first few children doesn't quite match the RC tradition.


Regarding the obscured number on the 1911 census, I noticed that the enumerator puts the loop of his 9 rather low. So could the obscured number be a 9? If that's the case then only one child died before the 1911 census and we have him.

I'd agree that the 1906-1909 looks like the best place to search for missing births, if there are any. If there were twins at any stage I'd have expected to find them together in the civil births - is that a correct assumption ?

Still births and miscarriages (including possible twins of those who survived) could perhaps, just possibly, also account for the original family story that there were 17 children ? But there wouldhave to have been a lot of them.

[heywood]

Now you point it out, I suppose that could be the case. The line seems to be slightly thicker and looking closely there could be a feint curve but I might be imagining that