General Chat

My Great x3 Grandmother was unlucky she had 9 children and only 3 survived.

My brother died at only 4 hours old. When father remarried following a divorce from my mother he named his son with the same name, I think it was cruel to do so.

Bridget

Oh dear Carol.
I wasn't expected to live (6 weeks premature, jaundiced etc), so, for some unknown reason, my mum named me after my gran's sister - the one who died aged 4!!!

My great grandmother named a child Leanora, died within the year. Her son my grandad named his child Leanora died within a month. These were unknown to me I wanted to name my first daughter Leanora, my mother freaked out said don't use that name unlucky in our family.
Carol

Until midwifery became a proper trained job, deaths of infants were frequent. Even in my mothers day, the thirties, women expected to lose at least one child.

Anyone who has looked up death records during the 19th century cannot fail to be shocked at the number of infant deaths which happened during those years. However I came across a name which really had a very unfortunate record. There were 26 deaths of Arthur Rawlinson recorded from 1870 to 1900. Of these 16 were aged 0 years, a futher 5 died under the age of 10 and the oldest death recorded was 22 years. The average age of Arthur Rawlinson was just 3.1 years!