Genealogy Chat

I'm trying to find out more about still birth's. Please any one tell me more about them and how do I go about find out about them. Where do I get a certificate for them?

Many thanks
Clare

Thanks for that information. Do you know I where the registar office is?

clare

You need to contact the GRO direct, unless the stillbirth is very, very recent, when I think you can contact the registrar for the area.

If you phone GRO they will send you the form - there is no on-line ordering in this case.

Elisabeth

From their website:-

Order a stillbirth certificate

Due to the sensitive nature of stillbirth registrations, only the mother or father of the child is able to apply for a certificate. The parent must be named on the birth certificate to do this. Should the parents be deceased, a brother or sister can apply if they can provide their parents’ dates of death.

How long will it take?

Your certificate is sent within 15 days of receipt of your application.

How to order the certificate

To obtain an application form for a stillbirth certificate, you can either telephone or write to the General Register Office.

Telephone
Please call +44 (0) 845 603 7788, Monday to Friday 8.00 am to 8.00 pm, Saturday 9.00 am to 4.00 pm.

Kath. x

Many thanks for the help I will try the general registar office.

Thanks again
Clare

My mum sent off to the GRO in Southport for her brother's still birth cert. She first sent a letter explaining who she was looking for and the relationship between them. You need to give them dates and names of deceased parents death etc.... They will then send you an application form to fill in all information required to find the correct cert.

They are very prompt with in sending out paperwork etc... and the cost was £7 which probably gone up due to increased charges.

Mum was thrilled to once and for all to find out that she did indeed have a brother and it wasn't her imagination.

Just really to pull together most of the above.
Still-births are registered in a seperate register to live births and these registers only contain 20 registrations. Once the register is full, unlike 'ordinary' registers they are then sent to GRO. No records are kept in a local office once the register is full.
Still-births currently do not have to be registered, but if the parents wish to they must be registered within 3 months of the event. It is not possible to register a still-birth after 3 months (unlike live births) although there are some proposals to amend these details.

JMW

You say that stillbirths do not have to be registered? I was not aware of this. Has this always been the case?

Elisabeth

Edit: Are you confusing the term 'stillbirth' and miscarriage? I think a stillbirth, i.e. 24 weeks gestation, has to be registered.

Joan,

You were typing as I was editing - we both think alike.

Elisabeth
x

I visited the local cemetery with my mum . We were searching for the grave of her stillborn brother from 1940. The staff in the office were very helpful and produced a seperate book to the deaths of stillborn children from my area.
We were allowed to search through the list of babies. Some had been named others hadn't. The names of father of child, address and occupation was also logged. Fasinating stuff but very sad. I was reading names that I knew from my town. More common than I thought really and a subject not talked about often.
Sadley mum's brother wasn't there and may have been in another cemetery. Thats when I wrote a letter on mum's behalf to GRO in Southport asking for an application form to obtain the babies death cert.

They were very helpful and we were successful.

Unfortunately I have to register still-births alongside live births as well as all the other duties that goes with being a Registrar. Still-births do not have to be registered if the parents do not wish. In the case of a live birth we would legally requisition the parents to register if they had not done so within 42 days. If parents have not registered a still birth within 3 months, no action is taken. The clue is in the wording 'opportunity' to register!

JMW,

Thank you for clarifying that - we learn something everyday.

We had a stillbirth 30+ years ago and I know he was registered by my husband while I was still in hospital. I always assumed he 'had' to register him to for the burial to go ahead, like any other.

I hope the many happy registrations make up for the sad ones in your daily work life.

Elisabeth

That is sad and like they never exsisted. Suppose mum was lucky to find out the truth about her brother. We still don't know where he was buried and probably will never find out. Someone told me stillborns could be buried with a stranger who died around the same time usually a woman.

Separate funerals for stillborn children are comparatively recent, in my experience

My late sister-in-law had a stillborn daughter in 1938 - the body was taken to the local undertaker to be interred with the next available decedent.

In our case, 30+ years ago, we were told to go away and forget about it, not that we did! We know he was buried, and which cemetery but there the trail ends. In recent times I did obtain a certificate and contacted the cemetery but they had no records of him. I contacted the undertaker - who had sent us a receipt stating the cemetery name, but the original man had died and the records for that era had gone.

All this was hundreds of miles from where we live now, but someday we just might go and visit.......... At least he is now mentioned in the family history.

Elisabeth

JMW

If you don't mind i would like to pick your brain......Would what you say about stillbirths not having to be registered, would that apply in the 1950's too.

I have always known that my Parents had 3 children that died before she had us 3 that lived......I have never spoken to my Mum about this as it isn't something that she would talk about. I was under the impression that 1 lived for a bit & 2 were stillborn.......I have never found a birth for the one that lived for a bit

Sorry for wafferling lol

Julie,

Have you checked the index for the surname with just male or female at the end of the entries? It is possible the little one may not have been given a name.

Elisabeth

It would be very unwise and insensitive of me to go into too much detail in response to some of the points on here now, as still-birth is rightly a very emotive issue.
Some general thoughts. Remember that the original registration law goes back 173 years and much of it is only being modernised during the last decade or so. When it was written our forebears had a totally different attitude to life and death to that which we have now.
The Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1953 (the most current) has some vague wording but Regulations that derive from it are more explict for the use of Registrars.
I would say that virtually all still-births are actually registered these days - certainly in the district where I work. There are some parents who do not give names to still-born children (one recently told me that his faith would not allow him to give a forename). There are also some parents who, because they find the fact so difficult, do the absolute minimum, because they think they ought, but then try to put it totally aside.
I am now going to do the happy part of my job and marry someone.

Elisabeth

I have look using surname only & also both my parents surnames
The 1 that lived for a bit was a boy & the ones that died were twin girls....I also know their names

Thanks JMW.....I understand as thats one of the reasons i haven't spoken to my Mum about it

Julie