Unregistered births in the 1800s. Any experiences?

[AntonyMMM]

I would highly recommend listening to my very knowledgeable friend and AGRA colleage Dave  Annal discussing the issue about whether registration was compulsory or not...

https://youtu.be/usNj-4eY2d8

[coombs]

I would highly recommend listening to my very knowledgeable friend and AGRA colleage Dave  Annal discussing the issue about whether registration was compulsory or not...

https://youtu.be/usNj-4eY2d8

Sounds like a good video.

[BumbleB]

Interesting!

[coombs]

He has an upcoming video about the 1874 tightening of the rules.

30% is too high a percentage for unregistered births in all before 1875, but it was still a fair amount I would say. About 10%.

[AntonyMMM]

Figures do vary, but the research I've seen suggests an early non-registration rate of about somewhere between 6% -10% , but that it very quickly fell to between 1% - 2% where it stayed.

As Dave will explain I'm sure in his next video, the 1874 Act had no real  effect on the rate at all.

[coombs]

I like his stories about Somerset House and then the FRC. I can so relate to those places.

I have two namesake cousins born in the same village around the same time, in early 1856. One registered, and one wasn't. One died as a child, one survived (my ancestor). Both were baptised on the same day in April 1856, sons of Robert and Jane and Thomas and Ann respectively. Robert and Jane's son died in 1860 aged almost 4.

[JAKnighton]

My 4x great grand-aunt Harriet Rimes, born 1843, doesn't seem to have been registered. All of her other siblings were, except for her oldest brother, Francis, who was born in 1837 just prior to when civil registration was introduced.

[coombs]

In regards to my Isabella Stokes, well in the 1851 census the family were living down a cottage down Waltham Road in Terling which is a quiet road outside the main village, about a km west of the village. If it was on the onus of the registrar and his deputies to get info on births, then they were only human, and some births slipped the net before the rules were changed for 1875. But David's next video will show how the 1874 Act had very little effect on the rate.

[AntonyMMM]

I would highly recommend listening to my very knowledgeable friend and AGRA colleague Dave  Annal discussing the issue about whether registration was compulsory or not...

https://youtu.be/usNj-4eY2d8

And the follow up which shows how the 1874 Act made no difference to birth registration rates ....

https://youtu.be/tM461gSN9I8