Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Hi everybody.
A little mystery that none of my family can help me with. My Granddad, Alfred Fletcher born 1883 Toxteth, Liverpool is recorded on the 1911 census living at 3 Grosvenor Road. Reg district 455, sub reg Wavertree, Ed 3, piece 22656.
On the record it states, one child born and died at the address.
Nobody has heard of a birth or death at that time. Even my late Aunt, who wrote her auto biography, does not mention it, and it would have been a Brother or Sister to her.
So, my question is, would the GRO be able to trace a birth/death around that time, 1909/10,with just the names of the parents and the address?
There are a few possibilities, including one listed as male. Why would that be?
As always grateful for any help.
Thanks Gareth.

Sad as it is this "male" entry may be the one, if the child was actually born but didn't live long enough to be properly named.

I would suggest that you use the same ordering procedure for when we aren't sure and that is when ordering from www.gro.gov.uk you uncheck the box asking if the GRO reference is known. This will give you the opportunity to include the parents names. They will then not issue the certificate unless it is correct. Giving one particular year, they will search the year either side of that for you.

Hi Gareth, they were married at St Bridget's (where I was baptised) Wavertree (Lancs BMD) in the June qtr 1909 (Free BMD).
If the baby was a boy, probably named after his dad??
There is a death in W Dby for an Alfred Fletcher 0 years Sept qtr 1910.
His birth in June qtr 1910.
I hope this is of help. You could send for this certificate listing the parents (Eliza nee Johnston)

I've made some progress on identifying our lost children from the 1911 Census. In our family there were 2 living children and four had died. I'd always wondered about the names of those four children. There are no easily accessible baptisms for them online and they were probably buried in public graves and those records are not online. Overall 12 children were born and 6 died as children. One is still alive in her 90s!

I picked out a number of possible birth and death indexes and selected two names to try to get their birth certificates using the no index reference method and stating the names of the parents so if there wasn't any matches I didn't waste money on unwanted certificates. The two names I went for were the names of their two grandfathers, names not given to later born sons. They were both right so I now only need to identify the other two.


Blue

Thanks to Mary A, Tina and Blue for your interest. Mary A, I have gone down your suggested path. So have to wait and see.
Clever sleuthing by you Blue. I could not see any particular names on the records that would tie in with older family names apart from the Alfred that Tina also picked out. Tina I do hope you are right. It doesn't feel right to have an Uncle with no name
Grateful for your inputs. Gareth

Good luck Gareth with your search, keep us posted!
Tks

MaryA wrote:I would suggest that you use the same ordering procedure for when we aren't sure and that is when ordering from http://www.gro.gov.uk you uncheck the box asking if the GRO reference is known. This will give you the opportunity to include the parents names. They will then not issue the certificate unless it is correct. Giving one particular year, they will search the year either side of that for you.

As I'm sure many here will attest, patience is required; using this method it has taken six weeks or more for an issued certificate to arrive and there was no real indication as to the progress so the first couple of times I wondered if my order might have gone astray (mind you I live in Canada so they likely spent a few more days in the post). I am happy to say that although not all of my requests resulted in a certificate, those that did eventually arrived.

Incidentally, since the last time I visited, the following notice has appeared on the landing page for the GRO's Certificate Ordering Service:

Customer Notice
Please be aware that due to high demand, our despatch date for standard orders which
do not quote a GRO index reference is approximately 20 working days after the order is
received.

...had I seen that, I think the wait might have been more bearable, but I must say it was worth in the end.

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, it's good to be aware of just how long the wait has become.

The delivery date for certificates ordered using the correct information is much less, probably about ten working days or less.

Sorry to read you have waited so long. Certs to Oz are twice as quick as those from Canberra. You are unlucky for sure.