Missing birth and death records: possible explanations?

[Davedrave]

According to the 1911 Census Thomas and Sarah had had 9 children, 4 of whom were alive and 5 of whom were already dead. There are baptism records and BMD records for the 4 living children. There are baptism records for three children who are not in the 1911 Census and almost certainly I have found BMD (FreeReg) records of the birth of these three children, and two of their deaths. So, I’m lacking the death record of one child, and any record for two more. I’m just wondering what explanation there might be.

It does look in the case of one boy, that he was baptised on 29 December 1893, registered in the first quarter of 1894, and died in the following quarter, and it looks from other evidence as if they tended to get the children baptised early. I’d almost be tempted to think that the 5 dead children was a slip of the pen for “3”, except that the total certainly reads 9.

[CaroleW]

Thomas & Sarah who?  Without names & birthyears/birthplace it's impossible to comment

Have you used GRO online to check births with the right mmn?

[mijath]

The most common reason for 'missing' records is mistranscription. So I would try all the clever search techniques you can think of, everything from wildcards to leaving off surnames all together and focusing on gaps between known children.

Of course baptism and burial records for certain places/churches/periods may simply be unavailable. Also with deceased children there is the possibility baptism did not take place.

With the GRO indexes I would also persist with clever searches, they will be there - births are easier to pin down than deaths, using the mother's maiden name.

[Davedrave]

Thanks for your replies. I will pursue the mother’s maiden name track. The reason I didn’t give the family surname was because it was really more of a general query than a request for specific help.
I have lots of info for the family including census and baptism records and know pretty much where they would have been living during the time the lost children would have been born and have died.

Those GRO records I have seen in the free indexes are all pretty clearly printed and it seems unlikely that the names would get mis-transcribed, but maybe I’m wrong here. I had also thought that all of the children would be baptised, since those whose records I do have were certainly baptised very young, including the instance where one baby appears to have been baptised before his birth was registered.

Dave

[chempat]

Those GRO records I have seen in the free indexes are all pretty clearly printed and it seems unlikely that the names would get mis-transcribed, but maybe I’m wrong here.

Dave

They can be mistranscribed from the badly written original before they are typed in the index.

[Davedrave]

Those GRO records I have seen in the free indexes are all pretty clearly printed and it seems unlikely that the names would get mis-transcribed, but maybe I’m wrong here.

Dave

They can be mistranscribed from the badly written original before they are typed in the index.

Thanks, good point.

Dave

[Davedrave]

I have actually now found 8 of the 9 children. In one instance, in the death record of a girl, the surname is spelled wrongly in the GRO record. She died age 0. Three boys were given the name Thomas (the father’s Christian name). One died aged two and the other two both died aged 0. Of these 8 children only one seems not to have a baptism record, and oddly he was the Thomas who lived to age 2. All four children who survived childhood were baptised very young, so lack of his baptism seems especially odd. I’m pretty sure the record doesn’t exist, because in the past I looked through the FindMyPast images for where it would almost certainly have taken place.

I can find no record at all of a fifth dead child’s birth, baptism or death.

There are just a handful of birth records of people with the same name in the same city at the same time. I know for certain that one of them is most certainly not related: he was the defendant in a celebrated murder trial and came from a considerably more affluent social background than my relatives, and the others don’t fit into the available biological time slots.

Ironically, of the four surviving siblings, three died in their late 30’s of TB (along with their 66 yr old father) in the 1920’s. Mother and one daughter lived to a ripe old age.

[Jebber]

Have you looked for a death without a corresponding birth, or a birth of an unnamed male or female child? If the missing child drew breath and died minutes or an hour or so later, the birth may not have been registered, only the death. This happened sometime.

[Davedrave]

Have you looked for a death without a corresponding birth, or a birth of an unnamed male or female child? If the missing child drew breath and died minutes or an hour or so later, the birth may not have been registered, only the death. This happened sometime.

Thanks. Yes, I’ve looked for both, and also using phonetic search. I did find what looked like a possible missing boy in the death record but when seen alongside the births his looked impossible to fit in with the known births timetable-wise. It also rang alarm bells because the child has a middle name (as do the others who don’t fit time-wise) which none of the certain children does.

I wonder if it might be worth my just putting a help request in the lookup section, given how clever others are at finding records compared to me? I’m not sure how I would search for an unnamed child.

Dave