Infant deaths - include or exclude?

[Gillg]

Among my mother's things I found a piece of paper with the names, dates of birth and death (where applicable) of all my great-grandfather's 11 children, written in beautiful copperplate handwriting. From his first marriage he had a son who lived till the age of two, though his mother had died at his birth.  From his second marriage came 6 boys and 4 girls.  Some of the boys were stillborn, some died in infancy, but only my grandfather and the four girls survived infancy.  All these children were given two forenames and from this paper I have their details.  They are all on my tree because they tell the full story of my ancestors.

Sadly the only child of my son and his wife, a little girl, was born at 26 weeks and only survived for four minutes.  Her birth and death had to be registered and she is buried in our local churchyard with a nameplate on her grave.  We were able to hold her shortly after she died and visit and tend her grave from time to time.  She would have been the same age as my daughter's little girl, so we can imagine what she would have been doing if she had lived.  It was important to me that I had actually seen and held her.

I would always include these children on a family tree.  They are part of the family's history, after all and every one of them is valued. 

[rebeccaclaire86]

I always include all of them, they were absolutely part of the family.  It surprises me that some people wouldn't.

Now the £2.50 certificates have been introduced I've bought quite a few death certificates for some siblings of ancestors who died young, it's given me an insight into the families.  I recently found two brothers who died of smallpox just hours apart, I found two children on separate lines who died due to burns (neither made the newspaper) and one young man who was suffocated by a hay bale while farming in a field (also didn't make the papers).  Also lots of sad cases of T.B. and some indicating malnutrition.  It's sad, but I personally think it's important to remember all of the children in a family and to understand what the family went through.

[DianaCanada]

Of course I include them.  The tree is 'family history' - any am. genealogist who omits them wouldn't get very high marks from me.  

The silly billies don't realise they may be omitting vital clues to family susceptibility to illness or gene irregularity do they?
My mother's sister had a cot death with her first baby (the  next children grew to adulthood thankfully).  The syndrome isn't in any line I've researched but I bet it's in the father's line somewhere - he died in his early 50's as he was getting on a bus to go to work and his son, my cousin, suffered his heart attack in his late 40's. thankfully he's still with us.

Rena

I include all of mine too. 
My paternal grandfather's brother, David Hibbert, died at just over 2 months in 1884 in Salford, Lancs., and the cause of death was given as: "Found dead in bed, no satisfactory evidence of cause of death". The informant was Frederick Price," Coroner for Lancashire, inquest held September 3rd, 1884."
It seems likely he died of SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, and likely there were many other children who did as well, we just don't know.
I also found out that his grandmother had had twins that were born and died between censuses.
David's mother also had twins, but don't think there is a genetic component as she was not related to her mother in law!
My maternal grandmother also had twins so I was quite concerned I might too, but it didn't happen.
Just as well, one at a time is plenty of work!

[Deirdre784]

I include all mine too - where known at least, as i'm not aware of any stillbirths. How else do you account for the info on the 1911 census which details the number of children born? And the certificates show locations, cause and timeframe, all extremely important to understand the times they were living in.