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From: "Tony Mitchell" <>
Subject: Re: [Lon] LANGLEY
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:05:01 -0000
References: <001501c61795$28d6ce90$4d0a4f51@trish1c0060723>


Trish

Just to confirm what others have already said, and to add a few more
details.

The current definition of stillborn is: "A still-born child means a child
which has issued forth from its mother after the twenty-fourth week of
pregnancy and which did not at any time after being completely expelled from
its mother breathe or show any other signs of life". I think the term of
pregnancy used to be 26 or 28 weeks until 7 or 8 years ago.

Registrars have a separate register for stillbirths. It accommodates far
fewer entries than usual birth and death registers. Full birth and death
registers are kept at the register office, but as soon as a stillbirth
register has been filled it must be sent to GRO. So register offices retain
no details of stillbirths other than those in registers not yet filled.

Stillborn babies may be given names, but often they are not. If a stillborn
baby has been registered without a name, a name cannot be added at a later
date.

Indexes of stillbirths are not available to the public. However, GRO may be
sympathetic to a request for a certificate from you as you are the baby's
sister. Write to them at Southport, or email them, asking if they would
provide you with a certificate. Be sure to say you are the baby's sister -
they may ask for evidence of this.

The body of a stillborn baby cannot be buried without a certificate from the
registrar confirming that it has been registered.

As far as your sister who only lived for 6 hours is concerned, both a birth
and a death should have been registered - possibly without forenames. These
would be in the normal birth and death registers and indexes. A baby needs
only to have breathed a single breath to be classed as live-born.

Regards

Tony

> Could SKS please tell me why I cannot find either a birth or death
certificate for my two baby sisters who were born in LOWESTOFT Suffolk .
A stillborn full term baby born August 1945, and the second baby who only
lived for six hours was born in September 1947.
However I do know they were buried in Lowestoft Cemetery, and have numbers
of their graves, why is it then that nobody seems to be able to track down
their birth or death records.
I have tried the local registry office but they didn't have any details
whatsoever.<

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