Genealogy Chat

hi all.
on the 1911 census it states that my great grandparents had had 2 children 1 still alive (my nan) and one deceased. my problem is no one now alive knows about this child and the surname is (yes you guessed it )smith there are 15 pages of births for smith in birmingham between 1901 (the year they married) and 1911 when the census was taken.
this is my question, if i went to the register office would i just see the same pages or do i see the certificates (i always buy mine on line so dont know what happens)
thanks for reading
zena :-)

I thinks its very unlikely that the register office will let you see the actual registers. You can narrow the search a bit by loooking for matching births and deaths in the records online, but its still a needle in a haystck search.

Andy

thanks andrew thats what i thought
zena :-D

You don't get to see any pages at all at Birmingham. I've no idea about getting them in person from other offices but you just fill in the standard request form.

On the off-chance of someone else knowing the name of the child, you could go on the Birmingham History Forum and ask.

J

Added thought. When looking for info on BMD for Birmingham, it's better to input Warwickshire as parts of Brum that are today thought of as properly part of the area actually came under the parish of Aston. Aston will not show up in a 'Birmingham' search. And to add to that, some areas now thought of as Brum were actually Staffordshire for register purposes. :-S :-S :-S :-S

On FreeBMD Aston and Birmingham show as separate areas until Dec1924

thanks for answering jillian
i will give it a go but its unlikely as no one on ancestory or genes seens to be looking for this part of my family
zena :-D

You need to start by looking for infant deaths before you try to identify the birth

ok reggie will try that
thanks
zena :-D

Before I posted, I did input deaths Bham area 1901 to Mar1911 with a view to seeing how many infant deaths there were. Far too many.

Wish I could think of something else. If you need to pick my brains about Birmingham please do.

Try phoning.
B´ham register office has an in house genealogist called John (sorry, can´t remember his surname)
He will do his best to help.

Marion

hi jillian yes im just working my way through them seems to be more 0-3 year olds than any thing so sad
thanks for your offer
best wishes
zena x
P.S. have had small thought they were married in april 1901 so hopefully no sex till then so birth must be after dec 1901
nan was born feb 1905 so 9 months before and after there out as well
see i am trying to narrow it down
x

If you google B'ham rego office, you'll see the local office will accept the GRO ref. My guess is they have a cheat sheet to find which of their regos to look in, so for each quarter, the sheet says All Saints 101-111, Birmingham 112-133, Edgbaston 134-144, etc thru all their subdistricts. They would have a seperate set of pages for Bs and Ds. (Ms are a bit difft, as there there aren't subdistrict regos, but church regos so there'ld be a page range for each church). Now you know the Apr 1911 subdistrict, and the Feb 1905 subdistrict. Hopefully, they're the same, and the same for the B & D of the missing kid.

I'm just guessing they've got cheat-sheets - phone them up and ask if that's the case, and whether they'll send you copies. (Actually, it would be nice if they'ld post them on their site.) Let me know if I've guessed right, please.

Actually, I would think an Apr marr to beat a May birth was the more likely hypothesis.

Brum is the only English office I know of that images the original rego, so you'll get to see the informants' signatures, which is nice.

On a FreeBMD hit, click on the "Brum" link, then more info "here", and you'll see a list of the Brum RD subdistricts - not all in operation at all times. Modern Brum RD includes subdistricts that were not in Brum RD in 1905 (e.g., Aston I think).

hi wise child and mgny
sorry i missed your posting i had started to trawl through the endless lists when i printed then out i realised it was worse than i thought. i had thought of your ideas althought i didnt act on them as it was to late but i will give it a go
thanks both
zena :-D

Zena.
John is really helpful.
Obviously he can´t give you the info you are asking for, but he will certainly tell you where you can look.
He solved a problem for me which had been bugging me for 10 years or more.

thanks wise child i will try
zena <3

One way of trying to eliminate some would be to make a note of the registration district where your gt grandparents were living in both the 1901 and 1911 census and search for infant deaths in those districts first. As you've said, you can use the dates of your gt grandparents marriage, and your nans birth to rule some others out.

Chris

Don't be too strict on the 9 month gap.
A premature 7months pregnancy baby might have been born alive.

If you know the parish where your folk were living, it is possible that the lost child was baptised and records could be found, then subsequent burial.

Gwyn

Hi Zena

If you want to pm me their addresses, if it's somewhere I am familiar with, I can try and tell you about the area.xJ

sorry jillian work called
1905 ruth smith born to samuel smith and alice may smith formally townsend back 87 george street west all saints birmingham

1911 census 93 sherlock street st martin birmingham

national roll of the great war 71 marroway street ladywood
they both lived there till they died in 1960 and 62
i do know birmingham a little as i only live in tamworth and was raised on the great barr/ kingstanding border but another brain would be great
zena :-D

Got this Zena. I have looked at Google Maps and George Street West still exists. Most of it is 'modern' with the exception of a row of much older houses that were probably considered too nice to destroy. I have a copy of Wakelin's Street Guide 1942 which tells me that it actually ran from between 101 Spring Hill and Pitsford Street. If you look at the map it cuts off now and doesn't run all the way. You might try contacting Birmingham Central Library and asking if they can see from any of their historical maps if they can place the house exactly.

Birmingham was famous for it's back-to-back houses.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/birmingham-back-to-backs/
http://www.birminghamheritage.org.uk/back%20to%20backs.html

Amazon has a book in its list about back to backs in Birmingham. I don't have it I'm afraid but you can look inside and see quite a bit. Lots of mine and hubby's lot lived in that sort of dwelling and we have the addresses on certificates.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Back-Back-Chris-Upton/dp/1860773214

For GSW the parish district says All Saints.
Found this
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=ihc8h82cso4s7v822nu10chc22&topic=353329.0

If you decide to Google All Saints in Birmingham yourself two possibles will come up. Go for those which say Ladywood or Hockley and not Kings Heath.

http://www.oldladywood.co.uk/ Didn't find anything that looked useful on a quick scan but it's the area.

Sherlock Street is also still there but nothing of the old houses remain but Sherlock is right by Hurst Street where the Heritage back to backs are. Census says Parish of St.Martin. It is still there but now very sadly (to me) dwarfed by the Rackhams building. It has been cleaned up though and is no longer the very black building that I knew.

Need to go and do something. Posting so if power cut or computer crashes whilst I'm away, all this won't be lost. Back in a while.xx

Back.

71 Marrow Street is still there. It's actually not that far from George Street West.

Have you heard of the Birmingham History Forum. It's quite interesting and you could post and ask questions.

I'm in Shirley, not that far from you in terms of a few minutes off the M42/A34/A3400 junction.

It's been years since I was in Birmingham Library looking at old records and the IGI on microfiche. If you ever feel like a day there and would be happier with some company, I'd love to go and see what I can find now.

When I used to spend my Thursday evenings after work up there (early 90's) I used to go through the films for the churches looking for the sunames on my list. It's a bigger list now. I presume that they still have the films available. We could go through the deaths for St.Martins and All Saints.

Anything else that you can pick my brains over, please feel free. xJ