This is so sad....

[Kathlyn Maudesley]

Because my paternal granddad changed his birth name to his mothers maiden name when he ran away from home, and told no one, we have all been happpily going through life since 1898 when he returned from his wanderings, thinking we were from the Maudesley clan !!!!

This research has unraveled this "secret", but it has taken me the best part of 3 years to do so.

From the time he married gran, every thing is well documented. I have the certificate details for all the 11 children they priduced, but as three of them died in infancy, I thought I would send off for the birth and death certs.

John, the first child, was born in 1899 but died when he was only 10 months old of Diphtheria.

Mary Kate was born in 1901 but she also died when only 5 years old of "Acute congestion if the lungs"

This is the very sad bit though........Walter died 10th May 1916 of Measles, my dad was born on 13th April 1916..... Imagine having a month old baby and loosing a 3 year old.

I know the infantile death rate was high and to be half expected, but how did they cope???????

It is when I see this sort of evidence that I am so sad I did not get nearer my grandparents.

Kathlyn

[Jill on the A272]

It was so much more common then to lose children, but I'm sure it was not only harrowing but caused financial hardship unless the child had a pauper's burial.

[Joan of Archives]

I had no idea that my Nan wasn't the eldest child until I discovered that she had an older brother, born 18 months before her. I don't even know if she knew or was ever told either. He died aged 20 months so my great gran had the heartbreak of having just given birth when she lost her first born, he took 5 days to die of pneumonia. It is really sad.

[Little Nell]

My great-grandmother Emma registered the death of 5 week-old Henry in 1868. He died of TB of the stomach, caused by drinking infected milk, which shows she wasn't breast-feeding him. Ironically her husband Thomas was a milk carrier.

3 months after Emma had my grandmother, she registered the death of 2 yr 5 month old John William.

2 years after that, Thomas collapsed and died on their 14th wedding anniversary.
She remarried, but registered the death of another son, John, aged 2yr 7 months, who died of the same illness as Henry. She was 5 months' pregnant with her last surviving child at the time. Only 3 children grew to adulthood and she had 3 other miscarried or stillborn children.