Missing twin?

[brentor boy]

According to his birth certificate, issued on 14 May 1839, Thomas Pellow Brook was born on 11 May, 4 am, 1839 at Lewtrenchard (Jun Q 1839 Tavistock 9/454). This suggests a multiple birth but I cannot recognise a matching entry to couple with it. If his sibling was stillborn, then clearly there was no birth to register. I suppose if death occurred immediately post natal the parents may have disregarded the child's very existence.

My problem is - why is a time recorded if the Registrar regarded it as a single birth and if he suspected a multiple birth, why was no record made? Any suggestions?

[kylejustin]

Not all births with time recorded were multiple births. If you think there was twins, maybe the other birth is mistranscribed, with the wrong district or numbers. Or maybe you could find a child death....sometimes one twin's birth or death was not recorded in civil registers, but was in parish records.

[Darksecretz]

maybe the registrar was very particular and recorded time of birth as well? [whether they were multiple births or not]

[Olde Crone Holden]

I believe in the early days of civil registration, Registrars misunderstood the instructions about entering time of birth and did it for all births, not just twins. This misunderstanding was sorted out by the mid 1840s, I think.

This is the most likely scenario in your case, although I must point out that at that time, death registration wasn't compulsory, in as much as you could bury a body without a death certificate!

OC

[brentor boy]

Thanks for all your thoughts.

In the absence of any other indication that there might have been a multiple birth, I am satisfied that it is most likely that the time was recorded as an unnecessary detail by an enthusiastic registrar.