Hi listers, My apologies if this is a duplicate sending, but have been having e mail problems. I note that 4 family births occurred in 1874: 2 were registered as R37/E389 & E437, 1 as R38/E68 and 1 as R39/E29. My questions are; was 1874 a very good year for births?; how many entries to a register?; and/or did each church in a parish have its own register? Regards, Brian in West Oz

Brian I assume these were births with the name LOADER. If so then 2 of these were for births where the mother's (maiden) surname was Loader, not the child's surname. The registers are not church registers, these are the civil registers for the Ryde sub-district, which in the 1870s covered not just Ryde, but also Binstead, Bembridge, St Helens, Brading, Sandown and Shanklin, there is a map on the IWFHS site showing an outline of the registration district. There were approximately 2300 births registered on the whole of the Isle of Wight in 1874, a number not exceeded until 1880, so I guess it was quite a good year for births. I would guess from the references that after 1866 a new scheme was introduced. There seems to be 500 entries per register, perhaps someone who helped with the transcribing of the database could explain the numbering system in more detail. In 1874 at some point during the year a new register was started, hence the change from R37 to R38. These numbers do not reflect years though, once one book was filled (I assume) another one was started. Hope that helps Jon Baker Dorset OPC Co-ordinator www.opcdorset.org -----Original Message----- I note that 4 family births occurred in 1874: 2 were registered as R37/E389 & E437, 1 as R38/E68 and 1 as R39/E29. My questions are; was 1874 a very good year for births?; how many entries to a register?; and/or did each church in a parish have its own register?

On 5 Dec 2009 at 15:30, Brian Loader wrote: > Hi listers, > My apologies if this is a duplicate sending, but have been having e > mail problems. I note that 4 family births occurred in 1874: 2 were > registered as R37/E389 & E437, 1 as R38/E68 and 1 as R39/E29. My > questions are; was 1874 a very good year for births?; how many entries > to a register?; and/or did each church in a parish have its own > register? Regards, Brian in West Oz > As Jon Baker has pointed out, there were only TWO births of children with the surname Loader in the Isle of Wight during the year 1874, not four. The other two were for children with different surnames (Harvey and Dyer) but where Loader was the mother's maiden name. The births are confirmed at FreeBMD, i.e. James Alfred Loader in the first (March) quarter of 1874 (vol 2b page 586) and Ellen Loader in the last (Dec) quarter of that year (2b 568). You seem to be confused about the system! Churches don't register births, they record baptisms - and not everybody was baptised, so not everyone would feature in a church register. As Jon explained, these are the civil registrars' registers of births and nothing at all to do with any church. Interestingly enough, it was the following year, 1875, in which registration became compulsory in the sense that parents could be fined for not registering a child's birth. Technically speaking, it had always been compulsory ever since the start of civil registration in 1837 but there were no penalties for not doing so until 1875 and many people in the early years were not registered at all. If you look up the two births, as mentioned above, at www.freebmd.org.uk and click on the registration district you will see that the Isle of Wight RD covered the whole island. Thus, it is not possible to tell from this reference precisely where a birth was registered. However, the folks in the Isle of Wight FHS who produced their own excellent database of civil BMDs have gone a step further and included the district, in this case Ryde. Since James Alfred Loader's reference in the first quarter starts with R37 and Ellen Loader's in the final quarter with R39, presumably there must have been at least three registers used in the year 1874. If you require copies of the certificates, then you can order them for £7.00 either from the IOWFHS website, using the supplied form, or from the General Register Office's website, using the references supplied at FreeBMD. However, please note that different indexing systems are used by the local register offices to that applied by the GRO and the two are not connected. -- Roy Stockdill Professional genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE