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Birth informant address query

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  • Birth informant address query

    Hi all, I am currently having a big tree tidy up in FTM starting with reviewing all my certificates to get all the extra information from them such as informants and witnesses. I have noticed in quite a few of the births and deaths that the address of the informant is different from the address in the date / place column even if you would expect them to be the same, eg the address given for a birth is different from the mother's address given when she registered the birth.

    The only reason I can think of is that she went somewhere else to have the baby. Was this common in the late 1800s? I thought babies were delivered at home or there would be a hospital address. Are there other reasons why this would be different? Similarly, the wife of a deceased man gives a different address to the one given in the date / place of death column.
    Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

  • #2
    Some of mine went home to mum to have a baby. Others went to the workhouse infirmary (not free unless you were a pauper) and a few must have had their baby unexpectedly in someone else's house!

    You die where you die, which is not always where you live. Infirmary again, or on the street or on a trip to another town. A surprising number of my relatives were found dead in a field.

    It can be helpful to google the addreses on certificates a that sometimes reveals workhouses, infirmaries and in one case, a prison!

    OC

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    • #3
      Thank you, OC, I hadn't thought of those reasons. What's the best way to find the addresses shown on old maps rather than current ones. Is there a good website I could use?
      Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

      Comment


      • #4
        I don't usually do it by looking at maps, I just put the address into google. If it is some kind of institution that will bring it up.

        OC

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        • #5
          I'll give that a try then, thank you
          Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

          Comment


          • #6
            Also people were quite mobile back then and in the 'up to 6 weeks' between birth and registering they may have moved to new rented accomodation.
            Anne

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            • #7
              Another one that sometimes comes up with single mums not living at home is the informant is the landlady of their lodgings or perhaps someone a few doors or a street away who helped out at the birth. Midwives needed paying for, friends and neighbours were free help.

              Comment


              • #8
                That’s really helpful advice. It has opened my mind to a completely different train of thought about the social history behind the facts.

                And after your earlier post I had another look on FamilyTree Maker and discovered that I can uses their Places tab to show multiple events on a map. The first example I looked at, the two addresses for place of birth and informant's (mother's) address were in fact almost back to back in streets of terraced houses. Maybe when the mother realised that the baby was coming she went down the back alley to the nearest person that she knew would be able to help her and delivered her baby there. Nice thought but I wonder if it matches reality?
                Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

                Comment


                • #9
                  Gardengirl, possibly the neighbour was a relative. My ggm and her sister always lived in the same street as each other and many of their relatives did too.

                  OC

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                  • #10
                    I wondered about that, too. I'm in the process of adding all the addresses correctly into FTM so I should be able to cross check addresses soon.
                    Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      As a side note: my grt grandparents died within a month of one another he died in the workhouse infirmary and his wife died at her house. Sad really.
                      Julie
                      They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

                      .......I find dead people

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                      • #12
                        Which one died first? Did he have to go to the workhouse infirmary because she was no longer alive to look after him?
                        Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          A few of mine died in workhouse infirmaries. I assume that most of the time it was because someone in the household had to work, so there was no one at home to care for them. Some conditions would be made more comfortable in the infirmary too especially if the home was crowded.

                          OC

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Gardengirl View Post
                            Which one died first? Did he have to go to the workhouse infirmary because she was no longer alive to look after him?
                            Nope he died first, but they both died of TB.. must have been a horrible way to go.
                            Julie
                            They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

                            .......I find dead people

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              The Salvation Army began unmarried mother homes around 1890 and there were maternity homes from a little earlier, I believe. I had an ancestor who gave birth in the former around 1900.
                              Bubblebelle x

                              FAMILY INTERESTS: Pitts of Sherborne Gloucs. Deaney (Bucks). Pye of Kent. Randolph of Lydd, Kent. Youell of Norfolk and Suffolk. Howe of Lampton. Carden of Bucks.

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                              • #16
                                One of mine who lived in Brighton gave birth in a home which helped "the less degraded class of penitent fallen women" in London in 1883 and then went home to Oxford having "blotted her copybook". Had it not been for the fact that she had a less common name I would never have found this.

                                It was part of the Bloomsbury Institutions and was a Home of Hope.
                                Linda


                                My avatar is my Grandmother Carolina Meulenhoff 1896 - 1955

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                                • #17
                                  TB was a notifiable disease and.most sufferers went to some kind of institution in order to protect family and.neighbours.

                                  I worked with a woman who had contracted tb in 1960 just after the birth of her daughter. She was sent to a local sanitorium and was there for nearly three years. Her daughter was cared for by her gran and when my friend went home, the child refused to leave gran. They never had a proper mother and daughter relationship, so sad.

                                  OC

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                                  • #18
                                    Originally posted by bubblebelle View Post
                                    The Salvation Army began unmarried mother homes around 1890 and there were maternity homes from a little earlier, I believe. I had an ancestor who gave birth in the former around 1900.
                                    Was it shown on the birth cert as a maternity home or was it just an address?
                                    Main research interests.. CAESAR (Surrey and London), GOODALL (London), SKITTERALL, WOODWARD (Middlesex and London), BARBER (Canterbury, Kent), DRAYSON (Canterbury, Kent), CRISP (Kent) and CHEESEMAN (Kent).

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                                    • #19
                                      Street addresses only from about 1890 - I will check that.

                                      OC

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                                      • #20
                                        Ooh, later than I thought! 1904 the Registrar General decided that a street address could go on a certificate rather than the name of an institution.

                                        OC

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