Dead Child included in 1911 Census

[Elastik]

Ancestry access to Electoral Rolls is determined by subscription level. Evidently my subscription level will allow me to search "London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965" but it will not allow me to view the records it finds, they are blurred out. So they can say "You have access to Electoral Rolls!" but in practice I cannot see them. I guess I'll have to upgrade.

[jonw65]

Sorryu about that. If your local library has ancestry you can search them there. Free weekends on ancestry are not so common nowadays, but probably they will have one at Remembrance weekend, they usually include many non military records as well.

[Elastik]

...When you get the birth certificate of Sarah / Hannah it will be interesting to see if she was born on 11 August!...

The link to the .pdf for Sarah's birth cert. turned up and the cert. had the following information -
When & where born : 11th August 1908, 21 Watt Street, Throston Harlepool
Name, if any : Sarah
Sex : Girl
Name and Surname of Father : Frederick James Stephens
Name and Maiden Surname of Mother : Ellen Harriet Stephens formerly Tolputt
Rank or Profession of Father : Boilermaker (Journeyman)
Informant : F J Stephens
When Registered : 26th August 1908
Signature of Registrar : Arthur Barret
Baptismal Name : Hannah

So, John, your theory is looking good & it may well be that she is Hannah Chamberlain, later of Paddington. I have more certs. on order that might be helpful.

[Tickettyboo]

Nosey Boo would like to know please, if there is any indication that it was the addition of the baptismal name that caused the Occasional copy A to be issued.

Boo

[Elastik]

I'd post the cert. but Forum rules forbid that I believe. There are zero corrections of any type on the cert. Nothing. It is neat and tidy. These parents had two children called Sarah Stephens. The 1st died aged 4. The 2nd is under discussion here. My current theory is that the Registrar would have known this & to avoid confusion between the two in the Registry labelled this as Ocassional Copy A: Just a guess.

[heywood]

Baptismal name isn’t usual on a birth certificate, so perhaps she was baptised Hannah and it was decided to use that name.
Or maybe she was registered wrongly and then baptised with the first choice name.
It is solved however.

[Tickettyboo]

I'd post the cert. but Forum rules forbid that I believe. There are zero corrections of any type on the cert. Nothing. It is neat and tidy. These parents had two children called Sarah Stephens. The 1st died aged 4. The 2nd is under discussion here. My current theory is that the Registrar would have known this & to avoid confusion between the two in the Registry labelled this as Ocassional Copy A: Just a guess.

Thanks for indulging my curiosity.

The copy A would be not be produced for any other reason than a change or addition. As none of the basic details were altered and there was a col for baptismal name I feel sure it was added after the copy register for that quarter had been sent off to the GRO, thus creating the need for a Copy A to be sent.
There'd be zillions of copy A entries  if they produced them for every child named after a previously deceased sibling - it was very common for people to re-use the name for a later child.

As for posting images of certs, Rootschat rules say we must comply with copyright and not divulge info about living people., so more recent certs where even if the person concerned is deceased, the informant/witnesses etc may not be so we need to bear that in mind.

and the GRO rules regarding reproducing certificates is here and as you can see they would have no issue with posting them either.

https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/reproduction-of-birth-death-marriage-certificates.pdf

Boo

[Elastik]

Hi Boo, are you saying I can post the cert? Actually, looking at this I'm not sure that it is strictly speaking "a cerificate". It looks more like a nice scan of a neat boxed rectangular entry from a larger register from 1908. It is overprinted with "Certified Copy". The various columns are numbered 1 to 10. Column 1 is "When and Where Born" & they continue to the right up to Column 10 which says on closer inspection the following "Baptismal Name if added after(italicised) Registration of Birth". There's only a 2 week gap between "DoB" & "When Registered". So on the face of it maybe they registered the birth immediately then had her baptised then registered her again, as has already been suggested.

[Tickettyboo]

Yes I am saying that you can post a pdf of a birth register entry from 1908 without transgressing any rules either of the forum or the GRO.

and that new info about the column heading 'Baptismal Name if added after Registration of Birth' is the clincher I was hoping for. It was allowed to add a baptismal name within 12 months of registration.
So they registered her as Sarah, went away and for reasons unknown had her baptised as Hannah (or even Sarah Hannah / Hannah Sarah - without the baptism entry I don't know).
Then they  toddled off to the Register Office and informed the Registrar, (who no doubt sighed as he'd already sent off the copy register to the GRO) then he did his job, added the baptismal name to the original entry and sent an Occasional Copy A to the GRO to reflect the new info.

Its not a re-registration, its an addition of a baptismal name to a registration which has to be sent on to the GRO so they have the most up to date version of the register entry.

and its not just you who has had trouble sorting this kind of thing out, I had similar problems a few years ago and, with a lot of help, got to the bottom of it and learned a bit about how things work :-)
That's how RC works, we have a problem , we get help, we learn something about how things worked and sometimes are able to pass that help along.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=815467.msg6767414#msg6767414


Boo