Sad Story - But I Suppose Quite Common

[champagnegal]

I went to my local family history centre today to look through some parish records - was actually looking for my great grandmother on my dad's maternal side, but instead found a further 4 children to my great grandparents on my dad's paternal side, one of which I knew about, but didn't know birth or death dates, the others neither I nor my father knew anything about.

The first one Jane Ann was born 2 months after my great grandparents married, she died aged 19 months; 3 months before their second child Thomas was born (he survived - only to be killed in the first world war). Their third child Dick was born 18 months after Thomas and also survived. Their fourth child Harry lived 22 months and died the same month their fifth child Elizabeth was born. She died 21 months after this and 6 months before their sixth child, Elizabeth Ann was born. She survived and so did their seventh child, George, however their eighth child, Harry survived 19 months and died in the same month his grandmother did (they were buried together, in a mass grave), His mother had died 3 months previously, giving birth to a ninth child who was still born and she bled to death through a placental abduction.

My great grandad went on to marry again, and have a further 2 sons.

Finding all this out this afternoon made me feel quite sad, certainly for the children, but also for my great grandma, having nine children in eleven years and dying because of this.

[Guest]

it can be very sad finding out what our rellies went through I often feel sad for them

[herky]

Yes, very sad and I am afraid all too common. I guess I canl never understand the sadness that my ancestors had to endure when they lost a child or more than one. I consider myself grateful for that. Even worse, I think, was the loss of the mum from childbirth and its complications.
I have found that most of my mums who died young were very quickly replaced by a second marriage, often with in a year. I expect it would just be almost impossible to cope without a mum at home to care for the children for the man of the house. Women in these days were also very good household managers - men worked very long hours and it was up to the women to see that a strict budget was kept to, bills paid etc., as well as all the household tasks.
My own gg granny and one of her children died 2 weeks apart of typhus fever. Her husband never remarried but I think that may have been because the older girls were grown up and able to look after the wee ones - aged 2, 4 and 7.
Yes, I get very attached to my ancestors and many a tear has been shed when I see the cause of death on a certificate.
Thank goodness for modern medicine.
But chin up - isn't it great that we care and they have not been forgotten about after all these years.
herky

[Sunny Rosy]

How very sad. To lose so many children and after having them in her life for such a short time. We are so lucky today that death in childbirth is extremely rare. My gt gran married at 18, gave birth at 19 to my gran and died 2 days later from puerperal fever which causes convulsions, (she had those for 2 days) with my gt gramps beside her. Without the benefit of modern science it could have happened to me when I gave birth to my first child due to complications. I count myself very lucky.

sunny rosy

[Harrys mum]

Very sad.............and common.

I'll probably be shot down for saying this, but I really think the parents must have got almost immune to the death of their children....or maybe used to it. I can't find the word I'm after.

Maybe with death of young ones being much more common, it was almost a part of life.

I know if I lost three children out of four and a husband within three years (like g grandmother) I would never be able to survive as well as she did.

OH's family lost child after child, then lost mum, then re-married and started all over again. They certainly didn't have to for money reasons. There was plenty of help for the babies, so I just think they were stronger from being constantly exposed to death.

[Olde Crone Holden]

One of my 2 x GGMs, Mary Green, died aged 32, giving birth to her eleventh child. The death cert records baldly "unstoppable haemhorrage" (sp).

She had a child every year of her marriage and three died at, or shortly after, birth.

I know this is hardly unusual but when I saw her death cert, I wept for her.

OC

[Little Nell]

Well, death is part of life, but I don't think that makes it easier. You survive and get on with it because you have no choice. Most of the time our ancestors had other children to feed and clothe.

It is sad though. My gt grandmother Emma had 9 pregnancies, 6 live births and raised 3 children to adulthood. Two of her babies died of diseases associated with poverty - one was just 5 weeks old.

Gt gran herself lived to be 83 and she was a tough old bird. She used to look after her 4 grandsons whilst their mother worked and would often clout them in case they did something to deserve it later!

[Little Nell]

OC

My gt gt grandmother Ann Mealing Williams bled to death after childbirth, aged 38. I've found no trace of the baby, so assume it was born dead.

Her youngest child was 3.

[Kit]

It's very sad and I actually stopped researching for a while as I became quite depressed on finding a great aunts death. She was someone that was alive when I was young, although I had never met her she was in contact with my parents. If I thought about it I would have realised she was dead but I hadn't thought and I hadn't meant to find her.

Libby I think the word you are looking for is resigned. I don't think they were used to it but I think they were stronger and community spirit was also stronger so they looked after each other more. Not sure if I've said this properly.

[Uncle John]

The other big killer was disease. You only have to look at the current measles scare and multiply it by a million to get some idea of what life was like before the 1920's, when modern drugs started to come on the scene. Many diseases were still killers in my own lifetime - polio, TB and many others.

[WendyPusey]

I've been transcribing some burials for FreeReg and have come across the same familes burying their babies and young children over and over again. Many of them have then buried mum a short time later. It is so sad, and so many are only a few hours or weeks old.

I don't have any connection to these people but it still makes me feel very sad.

[Wor canny Lass]

I don't think that parents ever get over losing children. My Mum had complications and at least 2 stillborn children. When I was an adult she said to me that no-one knew what it was like to lose children, She didn't talk about it at any other time, but I got the impression that even after many years she still mourned for her babies.

Doing some research for local history, I came across a letter in the local history archives, from a man to his wife, explaining how nuch he missed his mother as a small boy, and reading between the lines, he still missed her. His father had married his late wife's cousin, and there was no suggestion that the stepmother was other than good to him, but how he missed his mother.

Really sad

Anne

[Penelope]

Redacted

[Olde Crone Holden]

My 5 x GGM, Martha Lawton had a total of nineteen children. Only two survived into adulthood.

She lost the six eldest in the space of four or five weeks (to smallpox, probably) - her whole family wiped out in one go. She gave birth again shortly after this, and that baby died shortly after birth. There is then a four year gap in the births - possibly containing miscarriages and stillbirths.

She outlived her husband and ALL of her children, dying at the age of 85. I cannot imagine what her life must have been like, she must have wondered what it had all been about.

More cheerfully, most of my other ancestors, all farmers, had huge families, rarely lost a child other than to a farming accident and lived to a ripe old age, dying in their 80s and 90s. It was the move into the industrial towns and cities in the nineteenth century which decimated their descendants.

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

I have a set of letters, written in the 1840s by my G Grandfather's first wife (Arabella) and her sister.

In her letters Arabella tells of the marriage; then of her pregnacy; then as the time got nearer she wrote about how she hoped she would come through it. Sadly the last letter, written by her sister, describes how Arabella had died and the child was not well. The child died aged 2.

My g grandfather went on to have two more wives, lost four more children but AT LAST when he was 56 my grandfather was born - grandfather lived to 83! I often think its a miracle I'm here at all.

I have the death certificates for all the children - I feel I am keeping their memory alive.

Anne

[champagnegal]

I have the death certificates for all the children - I feel I am keeping their memory alive.

Anne

That's what I am going to do, just to let people know that these children were alive, somebody loved them and they haven't been forgotten - I've already got one, will get the other three when I am next in Leeds (and have some money )

[Bo the Bodger]

Terribly sad postings. My ancestors on my mother's side of the family to a certain extent show the two sides of the coin. On my mother's father's side of the family my 3xGt grandmother born 1782 m1801 d 1860. Between 1803 and 1831 she had 17 children - 14 made adulthood BUT 2 of her three eldest daughters died in child birth (the other died aged 17 but I'm not sure why - pre certs). The rest of her daughters either didn't marry or had no children - I think that the death of their sisters must've had an effect on them. There is a portrait that a cousin has which was painted in 1841 and shows a lady in 1/2 mourning with her children. She is the s-i-l of one of the daughter's who died in 1840.

On my mother's mother's side of the family my Gt Grandmother was one of 18 but as she was apt to say to my mother "Only 11 of us alive at any one time". She spent most of her childhood in black gloves. Her mother married in 1861 and died in 1884 aged 48. I have taken against my 2xGt grandfather as he as a Doctor should've known better. There are a few instances where the births are registered in the same year one in Q1 one in Q4.

On my father's side of the family there is a story that the parents went away for the weekend and when they came back 3 of their children had died of diptheria. I haven't found that yet but I'm still looking.

[Rosie Knees]

I have a set of letters, written in the 1840s by my G Grandfather's first wife (Arabella) and her sister.

In her letters Arabella tells of the marriage; then of her pregnacy; then as the time got nearer she wrote about how she hoped she would come through it. Sadly the last letter, written by her sister, describes how Arabella had died and the child was not well. The child died aged 2.


I have the death certificates for all the children - I feel I am keeping their memory alive.

Anne

Oh Anne, what precious letters to have . I would weep buckets over them. I agree that by researching our ancestors and their children they will never be forgotten.

My ancestors so far have reared most of their children to adulthood and generally the DOBs are roughly 18 months apart. They are all from Ag Lab stock and related occupations (wheelwright, blacksmith) so I guess that helped.

As mentioned in another thread, I have just discovered that OH's G GM had 15 children but only 5 were still alive at the 1911 census. I knew of 2 who had died as young adults. They stayed put in one parish so from printing out Bs and Ds from BMD I have got a fair idea that the other 8 children died very young. One poor mite was registered for birth and death in the same quarter. Some were registered soon after or just before the next child came along. Breaks you heart.

G GM was a widow for the second time in 1911 and was bringing up 4 of her grandsons, one of whom died during the Great War and another died in his 30s (but she was dead herself by then).

[GallowayLass]

My great Grampa and Granny on my Mum's side's firstborn was a boy who only lived three weeks. Nobody knew about him till I mixed him up with a later child given the same name and got a birth and death cert. for him. The thing that upsets me is nobody, not even the local council or the church, knows where the little soul is buried.

My Dad was one of twins and when his brother died not much more than a baby, Gran and Grandad couldn't afford a funeral so he was buried in a pauper's grave. They later did buy a plot but it always upset her that her little boy was never reburied with his family.

[Debbie]

My gggrandfather had three wives and ten children and only 4 survived. He had 3 sons named Francis and 2 daughters named Rebecca. I couldn't imagine naming another child the same name of a deceased child.