Thank you for sharing that most painful story. My husband had an older sister who lived for "a few hours" and we only know this because his parents told us. They told us there was no record of her birth and thus no record of her death. They were very poor and the undertaker took her away on his bike and buried her in a corner of another family member's grave. This whole question is also interesting because I once recall being told that a great-uncle was a twin, and had a sister but she died [at birth, I think was said]. There is no record of a birth or death and no-one else in the family in later years had heard this story. However, the 1911 census shows that my great-grandparents did have a child who had died. There are far too many births of that surname in that registration district to purchase the certificates and see if they are that child but I do wonder if my great-uncle really did have a twin. Carol -----Original Message----- From: Lill Ryan <lillsthebest@hotmail.com> To: staffordshire <staffordshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Fri, 9 Nov 2012 17:00 Subject: [STAFFORDSHIRE] Stillborn children I had a stillborn child the first born of twins born 12/11/54 they would not let me see it a boy 6lb6oz second a girl 7lb11oz both breech births. They told me my husband had to go and register the stillborn straight away did not matter about the living one as you had 6 weeks to do that he had to pay 5 pounds to register it but got no cert for it, i asked could he go to the funeral they said it would not have a grave but would be buried in some other poor persons coffin, they were born at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton and they could not tell us where it would be buried. We came to Australia in May 1957 in 2004 I went back to Wolverhampton to visit rellies and had started to do family history by then as my husband and mine were from around they I happen to be looking at Bushbury Cemetery registers for my aunts and uncles deaths when I came across stillborn son of Keith and Jean Spencer so I went out to the Cemetery the next day and asked if I could go and see where he was! buried they said I could go back the next day and that they would put a marker on the ground for me to see it was on a grassed area on a slight hill I then asked if I could get a cert for him and I was told only the parents were allowed to apply ( my husband had died in 1992 ) so I send for the cert. On my daughter's birth cert it only shows a single birth even though she is a twin. She went back two years ago and my cousin to her to the grave site as he had been with me when I went. I don't know why people were so callus in those days what harm would it have done to let us know. We had had the first two children and the living twin and another baby girl just 3 months old when we sailed to Australia. I did find out that they started to record stillbiths in 1928. All that heartache of worrying what had become of him so I don't think there will be any records in 1700's Jean Spencer. South Australia jeansgen@hotmail.com ****************************** ATTENTION TO ALL:- When replying please remove the details that do not apply to your mail and change the SUBJECT LINE for best useage of ARCHIVED MATERIALS. ****************************** PLEASE keep your Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware software up to date. BEWARE of messages making it onto the List with a single URL. NEVER follow the link. It's usually from an infected source! ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to STAFFORDSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message