Genealogy: Thoughts

[dimity_blue]

I've just wandered down the rabbit hole warren of James and Alice Bolland (my g-g-g-grandparents) and the baptisms they had for their 11 (!) kids.

On the one hand, it makes them easier to find. On the other, you come across the records for the birth, baptism, death at 11 months, and Christmas Day burial of their daughter Elizabeth (January - December 1879).

It's just rather sad and weird to think of. At least they're all together again now (barring any reincarnation).

Did you know on the Find-a-Grave site you can leaves virtual flowers on the graves? Well, now you know. :o)

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, it's always very sad, finding the burials of children - so many in large families in the 19th C so often. ♥

[dimity_blue]

I haven't had that many pop up, thankfully.

I only noticed today that some census forms make a note of how many living children and how many children birthed in total in the marriage. I can't believe I missed that for so long!

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, that's a thing that was added to the 1911 - it can be very useful. And because we even have the original householder forms for that one, we can see where people who were widowed had also added it in and had it crossed out.

(I found one form where they had included their dead children's names and details on the form.)

[dimity_blue]

That was handy but, wow, how sad. Those poor parents.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes. I was researching some sibling/cousin lines, but it was still very affecting to see that they wanted, nevertheless, to count them as part of the family. It does make you wonder what the original householder schedules for the other censuses might have contain that enumerators crossed through and didn't copy, too.

Infant mortality was just very high until the end of the 19th C, so it's unfortunate inevitability of our research that we'll run into it a lot. (One way to check it out for families that you don't have baptismal records for is to search for births using the GRO rather than Ancestry, with the mother's surname included from 1837-1911 and you can pick out more siblings who never appear on censuses and then find their corresponding death records.)

Which sounds very depressing, but I always feel that it's important to know they existed and put them back in their place on the tree, rather than not.

[dimity_blue]

"(One way to check it out for families that you don't have baptismal records for is to search for births using the GRO rather than Ancestry, with the mother's surname included from 1837-1911 and you can pick out more siblings who never appear on censuses and then find their corresponding death records.)"

Yeah, I like that you can do that with the GRO.

"Which sounds very depressing, but I always feel that it's important to know they existed and put them back in their place on the tree, rather than not."

I agree with you on that. <3 I also like seeing if their names get passed down. The Elizabeth I mentioned had a niece Elizabeth.