I'd agree with both of you - if that's possible! I think a relatively small number of families ignored registration, but those that ignored it, did so consistently, and can therefore represent a larger slice of the pie than one might expect. My GGrandparents did not register the births of any of their children, which has created some difficulty for me. I know of the existence of five of them only through their burial records, but their burials weren't registered either. Fortunately for me, they did undergo a formal marriage, as did all their surviving children, so I have been able to piece most of it together. The family were itinerant boatmen, living on the barge, and thus slipped under the radar. My Grandfather (on the other side of the family tree) was also not registered at birth (he was older than one might expect, so falls in the pre 1874 timeslot.) His three eldest siblings were registered, but the other seven children in the family were not. The difference was that the family had joined a non conformist church in the interim. I think where folk were C of E and living in a stable household, that registration became just an add on to baptism, but where these criteria were not met, there are likely gaps in the records. Angela ----- Original Message ----- From: <cheshire-request@rootsweb.com> To: <cheshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:00 AM Subject: CHESHIRE Digest, Vol 9, Issue 185 > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: JUDSONS'S DEATHS (Adrian Bruce) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 11:00:41 +0100 > From: Adrian Bruce <abruce@madasafish.com> > Subject: Re: [CHS] JUDSONS'S DEATHS > To: joy.langdon@btinternet.com > Cc: CHESHIRE-L@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <54195BC9.2060101@madasafish.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > Joy - thanks for clarifying the date when burials had to have a > certificate first - that would explain my feeling that I had examples > that broke the supposed rule. > > Depending on what you meant by "possibly a third of these early > registrations are missing" we may have to disagree on that. The 1874 Act > was a sensible step, placing the onus of registration on the people who > knew. However, if it was fixing a material problem, one would expect the > numbers of registrations to get a boost. According to the serious > studies of registration (whose name I have forgotten!), that simply > doesn't happen - i.e. the system was already working well before 1874. > > Certainly in the first couple of years there were issues - one Poor Law > Union actually refused to appoint a Registrar, reckoning it an > unwarranted breach of privacy. But by and large, it seems to settle down > quite quickly. I have indeed seen suggestions of 1/3 of births missing > in relation to areas like Liverpool later on the in 19th century but I > question how those figures were arrived at when compared to the > conclusions from serious histories. > > Adrian > > On 16/09/2014 21:11, Joy Langdon wrote: >> ... There was no penalty for failing to register a birth or death and it >> is believed that possibly a third of these early registrations are >> missing. >> ... >> It wasn't until 1926 that a registrar's certificate or coroner's order >> had to be produced before a burial could take place. >> > > > > ------------------------------ > > To contact the CHESHIRE list administrator, send an email to > CHESHIRE-admin@rootsweb.com. > > To post a message to the CHESHIRE mailing list, send an email to > CHESHIRE@rootsweb.com. > > __________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com > with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body > of the > email with no additional text. > > > End of CHESHIRE Digest, Vol 9, Issue 185 > **************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.932 / Virus Database: 4015.1.1/7732 - Release Date: 09/18/14 02:01:00