Elizabeth >From 1874/75 there were fines for people not registering births within six weeks, and it is the same today. Prior to that date, and from July 1837 I think it was a combination of the Parish Clerk and/or the parents, but I am not too sure on that. We did have churchyards, that is true, but we also had cemeteries because by about 1780 most churchyards were full to overflowing - literally. So bad in some cases that the earth of the churchyard was way above the path, which caused a well known Birmingham man, William Hutton to remark 'it was once said the church buried the dead, but it now looks like the dead are burying the church' or words to that effect (I am doing this from memory). This is when cemeteries came in. The first recorded one (according to Dr James Stevens Curl in his book The Victorian Celebration of Death) is one that was laid out in Norwich in about 1819, but most people either do not know about that or do not consider it, because it was very small. The cemetery I am involved with, Key Hill Cemetery in Birmingham, was laid out in 1835 and open for business in May 1836 - and yes, this was unconsecrated, because it was for non-conformists - however, it was for the use of all denominations. I think this may have shocked many people years ago, but some of the most famous English people are buried at Key Hill, including the Chamberlain family (Neville Chamberlain's father, Joseph, for instance) and Alfred Bird of custard fame, John Henderson whose firm built the Crystal Palace and the Chance family, whose glass company was the most important in the world by 1851. Not being buried in consecrated ground is nothing to be ashamed of - KH also has a lot of C of E families there, including some of my own, and accordingly to one lady whose grandparents were amongst the civilian war dead 'we had them buried at Key Hill because it was considered 'posh'. I have been permitted access to the Key Hill records, and some stillborn children are in the records, as I have seen them. As for suicides, I cannot say, but it was also the normal practice for hanged felons to be buried in unconsecrated ground, but there is a man buried at St Mary's Churchyard in Handsworth, Birmingham, who was a forger, and he was hanged. St Mary's is C of E, so it goes to show that nothing is written in tablets of stone, it was obviously dependent on the vicar. Pauline Tamworth, Staffs ----- Original Message ----- From: <earoberts@bigpond.com> To: <gloucester@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 11:46 AM Subject: Re: [GLS] birth of twins and cornors of church yards I have been following this thread and offer a suggestion as to why people are not finding the deaths of still and near still deaths in church registers. Other have said before certain dates they did not have to be registered with the register general and don't forget the hospital does not do the registration you have to physically go to the registers office or at least you have to in NSW Australia. In NSW lots of people forgot to register the birth of live babies, it was a crime with penalties not to register an event within a certain time. In a time before passports etc with no incentive to register, baby bonus etc, if the time had lapsed why bother. With so many of our laws, certainly before 1900, based on English laws, this may also have applied in the UK. But the reason for this email, my mother was born in England in 1920 to an Australian mother, she was privately baptized at home as soon as possible after she was born as her mother was so horrified at the then English practice of insisting unbaptised babies had to be buried in un-concentrated ground. The back corner of the church yard for babies seems like either unconsecrated ground or a carry over of this practice. Logically if the burial was not in consecrated ground it may not have to be recorded in the church register. I gather you did not have General Cemeteries in England only those attached to a church (unless they were Quaker cemeteries). What sorts of notations have the people transcribing parish records found for unbaptised babies and suicides, another lot that were not buried in consecrated ground. Has anyone with a known suicide found the burial recorded in a English local parish register for the period say 1900 to 1920? Elizabeth Roberts Sydney Australia