Death age "0".....

[Thrall]

Hello all.
Perhaps a stupid question, which could have been answered with more diligence and perseverance on another site, but; on English DCs, does age "0" mean stillbirth, or age not known? The name of the person concerned is so long, I somehow doubt it was a stillbirth, with three "christian" names.

Thanks for comments,

Thrall.

[AndrewP]

Hi Thrall,

In terms of the index, age 0 at death should refer to a death at age up to 364 days (anything less than 1 year). Normally a death certificate at age 0 will show the age in months, or weeks, or days, or hours, or minutes, depending how short the life was. There should be no stillbirths in the death register, it should be for live born only. There is a separate register for stillbirths, but it does not go back to 1855, and it is not open to the public to view.

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[DavidWW]

I've never seen a death register entry where the age was "0", only ever a figure in mins, hrs, days, or months, but these all translate to "0" for the index.

I'm not sure what the English GRO practice was. Can someone comment who has seen more English certiicates that I have?

David

[sporran]

Hello Thrall,


I can not write with any authority, since all my English death certificates involve adults. However, the word "years" is written after the age number, and I assume that infant deaths would use an appropriate unit of time.

Indexes are another matter. They started in England in 1837, and from 1866 the age at death was added to the indexes. That is shown in years, and many 0 ages appear, sadly. In 1969 the age at death was replaced by date of birth.


Regards,

John

[Bryan]

I have an English death cert which gives age as 8 hours, but this appears on index as 0.

I think anything less than 1 years will appear as zero as explained above

[Thrall]

Thank you all - I will go with the "less than a year old" until anything else transpires. Somehow one tries to be more careful/precise when scratching around in someone else´s tree!......Why?

Good hunting,

Thrall

[Rab]

I can confirm what was said to from my own expierience. I was looking for the death of a girl and boy in the 1880s in Lancashire. The girl's aad on the index was 0 and they boy's aad on the index was 1. When I got the certificates the girl was 9 months when she died and the boy was actually one year old to the very day when he died.