Death in Infancy

[Beverley Backstrom]

My Grandmother always told us that she was one of 17, several of whom died as small children.

Is there anyway, other than getting the birth certificates, to discover the parentage if the maiden name isn't listed?

It would be pretty expensive to buy copies of all the children with the same surname, born in the same era and in the same area.

[Elaine ..Spain]

Is it an area that is covered by any of the UKBMD databases. Some of these now have the mother's maiden name transcribed.

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/index.php

Can you view the parish registers for baptisms?

.. and welcome to Family Tree Forum.

[Anne in Carlisle]

I had a family that had 4 who died as babies. The name was reasonably distinctive but not unique in the area. I made a list of all the possible births and then tried to match them up with the deaths. At least that would eliminate those who did not die.
Then instead of buying the birth certificates I bought the death certs. Usually for a child, in the occupation column it will say "son/daughter of John Smith a butcher" or some such so you can be fairly sure they are the correct ones (unless the name really is Smith, of course!!!) As it happened I did get the correct 4 certificates.

Is the family on the 1911 census? How many children does it say they have had living/dead?
Welcome to FTF, by the way

Edit to say .... don't forget that if a child was born and died very soon afterwards it may not have been named and be listed in the index as "male Smith" or "female Jones"

Anne

[Ozzie Gert]

Also if you know the birth years of the living children look for gaps between them, say 4 or 6 years, i found a few that way.

[JBee]

Try www.familysearch.org too - I've found some births that I didn't know about and then found a corresponding death too.