Baby death

[Orlaith17]

I have recently found out that my grandmother gave birth to a baby in 1930 but the baby died. I found a birth registration for the child, but cannot find a death registration. If the baby died very shortly after being born, would the death have been registered as well as the birth in Scottish records at that time?

[AndrewP]

So long as there was a 'live' birth, there should be both a birth and a death certificate.

In my family tree [my generation], there was a child who survived only 15 hours; born prematurely at home about 2.10am and died at 6pm the same day in the maternity hospital. The birth and death were both registered two days later at two different registration offices: the birth in the district for the home and the death in the district for the hospital.

On looking at ScotlandsPeople, of the total of 87649 deaths registered in Scotland in 1930, 8265 (9.5%) of them were aged 0 years. I suspect there would be a significant group within that 8265 that died within the first few days of life.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Orlaith17]

Thanks Andrew, that was my thinking. I cant see details online of the birth as it was too recent. But the birth is registered and the baby has the correct christian and surname I was told. I tried leaving the christian name off the death search and widened it out to cover 20 years after the birth in case we had been misinformed, but no results. I will go to local Scotlands People research office to look properly at birth details.

[AndrewP]

Try the opposite approach - input the first name(s) and the year only. That may produce hundreds of results. Sort them by surname and see if it comes up (possibly mis-spelled in the index). Failing that if you know where to expect the birth to have been registered, sort them by RD Name and see if that gives a result. Failing that too, sort them by Ref and that puts them in county order, then registration office number order. See if it is there badly mis-spelled. Could the surname have been registered as the mother's maiden surname?

Food for thought,

AndrewP

[WilmaM]

Have you tried seeing if you can find any other death that matches that birth you discovered? ie 2 almost identical names born around the same time.

Other than that try, as Andrew's own example was, to try slightly further afield for the death, and not expect the birth & death to be registered in the same district.
I think they were very strict back then as to registering in the place the event occurred.
So if the birth was in Paisley, Renfrewshire the death may have taken place over the 'border' in Glasgow and be in Lanarkshire. Or some similar regional anomaly.

It's frustrating!