Grandads birth address query

[quiffdo]

Hi all

I have received my grandads birth certificate from 1925 (he is deceased now) and it gives his address and also states where he was actually born.

His parents were living at 22 Sevastopol street and he was born at 58 Balkan street.

I assumed this was a hospital at first but I checked the address on Lennon Wylie's site and a gentleman named James Quinn (a labourer) was living there.
I can aonly assume that perhaps James Quinn's wife was a midwife or something.

Does anybody have any idea what this might be?

Kind regards

Dan Wilson

[Milliepede]

Are the addresses very far apart?

Maybe they were friends and she went into labour when visiting. 

[quiffdo]

Hmmm that's a good point. I'll check to see how close the address are. I do know that my great grandfathers mum lived on Balkan street at that time but not number 58.

[quiffdo]

0.3 miles away so just a 5 minute walk. Will have to see what I can find out. I do have a copy of my grandads christening record so will see if the sponsors are a clue.

[a-l]

Was Quinn married to his mum's sister ? It's another possibility.

[scotmum]

Hmmm that's a good point. I'll check to see how close the address are. I do know that my great grandfathers mum lived on Balkan street at that time but not number 58.

Could 58 have been a poorly written 38 or 68? A James Quinn died at no 58 in 1936. No mention of a wife, living or late, in newspaper notice at time. Earlier, in 1903, a newspaper of time noted in an inquest report:

. said that his wife had been attended at her confinement by a woman named Margaret, 68 Balkan Street   

so perhaps, depending on age, she was still assisting births in 1925. Something to consider anyhow, albeit the Margaret of the 1903 article was blacklisted, so perhaps not. Either way, it shows the possibility of local women attending confinements in the area, be they midwifes or otherwise.

[gaffy]

... I can aonly assume that perhaps James Quinn's wife was a midwife or something.

Whoever it was may well have been just a 'handywoman', the practice was still rife in the 1920s.

https://epidemic-belfast.com/regulating-midwifery-in-early-20th-century-belfast/