Harder than Cryptic Crosswords

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:21 am

I thought I would have a look at that birth on the IGI to see if it was there and how they handled a missing first name. I couldn’t search for it normally so went to Hugh Wallis’s site http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... #PageTitle

Travelled to Scotland – Midlothian – St Cuthberts and found a few likely batch numbers (about three) including C119906. Clicked on the batch link and typed the name and the result was 10 births. Here’s the one of interest, it looks like he died.

IGI Individual Record
HUTCHISON
Male
Birth: 08 FEB 1842 Saint Cuthberts, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland
Death: 08 FEB 1842
Parents:
Father: JAMES HUTCHISON
Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record.

Now something strange happens. Click on the “refine search” link and you’ll go to the IGI search page. Change the country to Scotland. This time you’ll get ten births, ten deaths.

If you then remove the Hutchison name and search the batch with country Scotland you end up with what looks like a list of thousands of children who died in St Cuthberts soon after birth and most are unnamed.

Many of these entries have only the fathers name or just a family name as the parents name and wouldn’t be findable from a normal IGI search but if you know the batch number the search is very flexible.

Alan

innjess · Post by **innjess** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 5:18 am

Following up on Alan's (Currie) latest post, looking up Batch Number C119906, and there are five names (eliminating the duplicates), where the Birth and Death are given. Of these only one was not a stillbirth (presumably), that of the Hutchison born 10 Jul 1850 and died 30 Jul 1850. So many stillborn, if correct. I also looked up Batch Number C119905, where there are also a number of Hutchisons, but, following the same method, only dates of births and no dates of death are given for thirteen Hutchisons.
And I still have not got a confirmed DOB for William Murray Hutchison!
Nil desperandum!

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:25 am

Hi Innjess

Of these only one was not a stillbirth (presumably), that of the Hutchison born 10 Jul 1850 and died 30 Jul 1850.

I may be wrong, but as far as I remember, stillbirths were not recorded back then. (I don't think stillbirths were recorded until 1939) If the child is listed as having been born and having died on the same day, it would, I think, imply a live birth but that the poor child died later the same day. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Not that it helps find the one you are looking for...

Best wishes
Lesley