puzzling GRO birth index listings

[Jon_ni]

What do others make of this, could it be a re-registration though there is no star in the index images referring back from 1857 to 1856:
1856 Margaret Alice & 1857 Ellen have same Vol & Page No of 8E 434 on FreeBMD (have checked the images) these also agree with what appears in the GRO website index.
Surely different years should have a different page, especially when the Vol is the same - so not just a co-incidence in a different book.

FreeBMD
Births Sep 1855 GIBSON Ellen Preston 8e 433
Births Sep 1856 Gibson Margaret Alice Preston 8e 434
Births Mar 1857 Gibson Ellen Preston 8e 434
Births Mar 1858 Gibson Mary Preston 8e 445

GRO website (reordered by date):
GIBSON, ELLEN (WIGGANS) GRO 1855 S Quarter PRESTON Vol 08E p433
GIBSON, MARGARET ALICE ( - ) GRO 1856 S Quarter PRESTON Volume 08E p434
GIBSON, ELLEN (McMAHON) GRO 1857 M Quarter PRESTON Vol 08E p434
GIBSON, MARY (WIGGANS) GRO 1858 M Quarter PRESTON Vol 08E p445
GIBSON, JANE (McNEIL) GRO 1858 D Quarter PRESTON Vol 08E p424

& this is likely her:
Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of Preston in the County of Lancaster. 1857 Jan 27. CATHERINE, of Samuel & Hannah Gibson of Clarence Street (Weaver).

1861 Census Preston, Lancashire
Samuel Gibson    28
Hannah Gibson    27
William Gibson    6 [born Ireland]
Ellen Gibson    4
Jane Gibson    2

1871 Census Preston, Lancashire
Hannah Gibson    36 (widow)
William Gibson    16
Ellen Gibson    14
Jane Gibson    12 [incorrectly transcribed as James on Ancestry]
Samuel Gibson    10
George Gibson    8
John Henry Gibson 2
[Jane, Samuel, George & John H GRO births have mother’s maiden surname of McNeill]

Parents married
10 Jan 1854 • Shankill Parish Church, Lurgan, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland
Samuel Gibson, aged 21 & Hannah McNeill, aged 22 (fathers = Samuel Gibson & Hector McNeill)
Williams birth unrecorded as Irish GRO births start 1864

Seems strange. John

[groom]

I'm not quite following you, John - mind you it is NY Eve and I've had a drink.

Do you think that these children are all from the same family? If Hannah's maiden name was McNeill, the only child registered with mother's maiden name McNeill is Jane, the others are from different families.

[giggsycat]

Hi

Each Registration District has Vol and Page Numbers which are repeated over and over.

From FreeBMD

District to Volume Mappings
Registration Districts are grouped into Volumes and the volume number appears in the entry. At any particular time a district is associated with only one Volume and this can be used to validate and work out the intended district. The mapping for the "official" district is best found by looking at the page range information below. A complete listing for all the different district/volume combinations that have be transcribed can be found here.
We have extracted from the database a district to volume mapping, by year - it is here. Also, to save you the effort of looking for them, here is where there is a conflict between different entries.

Please note that these references involve a large amount of data which may take some while to download.

Page Ranges
Within each Volume there are pages and a range of page numbers is associated with each district.
We have extracted the page ranges for each volume. Look here for an index by event type and year, or here for an index by District. Remember that these are generated from the data, and so have errors in them!

Giggsy

[Jon_ni]

Groom

No I think Ellen and Jane are sisters even though the GRO lists Ellen's mother as McMAHON and not McNeill/McNeil. I also think she was baptised as Catherine.
What I was wondering about was the Margaret Alice in 1856 and Ellen in 1857 both Preston Vol8E and same page number.

I'm about to head out for a drink myself so will evaluate the FreeBMD info next year that giggsycat has suggested I read https://www.freebmd.org.uk/DistrictInfo.html had not come across that page before

John

[groom]

No I think Ellen and Jane are sisters even though the GRO lists Ellen's mother as McMAHON and not McNeill/McNeil. I also think she was baptised as Catherine.

That's quite a big jump - why do you think that?

[Jon_ni]

Groom

Ellen appears with the family on the 1861 & 71 census as daughter with birthplace Preston
all the younger siblings are GRO mother = McNeill
there is no registration for a child Gibson mother = McNeill that year
there are no other McMahon birth registrations. Admittedly have not searched marriages

The Parish Baptism images are on Familysearch and the mother Hannah, Father Samuel and addess fit for Catherine
The only other Preston baptism on Lancashire OPC (ok conformist only so chance the Ellen with mother McMahon would not be listed if eg RC but the rest of the siblings were C of E) is for the Ellen, daughter of Wiggans = parents John & Alice

its a jump but otherwise she is missing and there is a spare
Baptism: 28 Feb 1858 St John, Preston, Lancashire, England
Ellen Gibson - [Child] of John Gibson & Alice
Baptism: 28 Feb 1858 St Mary, Preston, Lancashire, England
Ellen Gibson - [Child] of John Gibson & Alice
Baptism: 28 Feb 1858 St John, Preston, Lancashire, England
Mary Gibson - [Child] of John Gibson & Alice
Baptism: 28 Feb 1858 St Mary, Preston, Lancashire, England
Mary Gibson - [Child] of John Gibson & Alice
Baptism: 3 Jul 1859 St John, Preston, Lancashire, England
Thomas Gibson - [Child] of John Gibson & Alice

[giggsycat]

Preston RD used Vol 8e Page 434 every year from 1852-1867.

There were only 16 Quarters in 16 years when the Page Number was not used.

Giggsy

Happy New Year!

[rosie99]

There are other births recorded at Preston for Gibson mmn Wiggans and variants

GIBSON, ANN       mmn WIGGANS     
1854  March Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 441
   
GIBSON, ELLEN       mmn WIGGANS     
1855  Sept Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 433

GIBSON, MARY       mmn WIGGANS     
1858  March Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 445   
 
GIBSON, THOMAS       mmn WIGGINS     
1859  June Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 516   
 
GIBSON, ROBERT       mmn WIGGINS     
1861  June Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 557

GIBSON, SARAH       mmn WIGGANS     
1865  June Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 540

GIBSON, JOHN  JAMES     mmn WIGGANS     
1868  Sept Quarter in PRESTON  Volume 08E  Page 505

Probable parents
Marriage June qtr 1853   
Gibson    John       
Wiggans    Alice       
Preston    8e   521

These match those baptisms (reply 5)



 

[rosie99]

I am trying to get this sorted in my head 

I assume that your 'problem' is that you cannot find a birth registration for your Ellen - parents Samuel & Hannah.  It was common for births not to be registered and it was not until the late 1870's that the system was tightened up and the responsibilty of the registration lay entirely at the parents door.