Mothers medical records

[MGJW]

My parents were married in 1936 and i was born in 1950 a long time without children. Before my Mother passed away in 1984 and my Father in 1996 i asked if they had children before me considering the 14 year gap, silence, long pause, the answer was no.
On asking around the family the question was met with a wall of silence.
Is their any way of obtaining my mothers medical records to find out the truth one way or the other.
Thanks John

[Lindad]

Probably not, I'm afraid. Legally, adult medical records only have to be kept for seven years, and childrens for 25 years.

I'm not sure where you are based but, if you are within reach of Kew, it would be worth your trawling every quarter of every year. I know 14 years sounds a lot, but it wouldn't really take all that long... Records for that era would show the baby's surname and also the maiden name of the mother so it would be fairly easy to identify any possible siblings.

Without wanting to cause you any additional stress, I assume you have a copy of your own birth certificate showing the names of your parents?

In reality a long gap post-marriage and pre-children isn't unheard of. I have friends who were married for almost 20 years before their daughter was born (very dramatically with absolutely no warning prior to the day of her birth!) - after they had given up all hope and adopted two boys!! :eek:

[MGJW]

Thanks for your quick responce.
I am now living in Gosport Hants but at my birth the family was in West Sussex i was born at Shoreham by Sea
I have my birth cert and all is well on that front thanks.
It could be me reading somthing into the situation that`s not there?
Thanks John

[Lindad]

Remember the war came in the middle of those 14 years. Was your father away in the services for much of that time maybe? Was he injured or affected in some other negative way? Were they 'bombed out'? The south coast was affected quite badly during the war, and for quite a while afterwards so I gather. Also, in those days, people just didn't get married or have children 'until they could afford it'.

All these things could have been part of the reason for your apparent late arrival.

[Peter Goodey]

It could be me reading somthing into the situation that`s not there?

If you've got your birth certificate and your parents' marriage certificate and you've searched the GRO birth indexes from 1936ish to 1950 without finding anything, you can be pretty sure that the answer to your question is "yes".;)

[suedent]

The answer might be that there were miscarriages/stillbirths, hence your parents' reluctance to talk about it. The memories might have been too painful.

[Peter Goodey]

That does raise another issue that John may or may not want to explore.

The GRO holds records of stillbirths which have occurred since 1 Jul 1927. The indexes are not available to the public. Details will only be revealed to the parents or to the siblings where both parents are dead.

I've no experience at all of the stillbirth register and have no idea what sort of searches are possible (conducted only by GRO obviously!). If nobody here knows, you'll have to ask GRO.

[MGJW]

Thanks to all for your help, sorry for the delay in a reply i have recently come out of hospital.

LINDAD, it`s the wall of silence i get when i broach the subject, all other enquires on the subject of family history in general i have no problems with .
Both my parents are dead and there is only one auntie left to talk to on this subject it is like getting blood out of a stone.

PETER, i will retrace my steps with my search again to make sure i have not missed somthing, as for the GRO i will contact them and any findings i will publish here.

SUEDENT, that is always a possibility of painfull memories and a reason for the whole family are keeping quite?
Thank you all once again John

[Lindad]

Hi

I can very well understand how you feel about this. My cousin and I have experienced something similar (but different!) and it does tend to make you suspect the worst.

Do you have access to the full GRO records for every quarter and every year (ie. not just via FreeBMD or Ancestry)? If not, PM me your father's name and your mother's maiden name and the general area where they lived and I will have a look. The search would take a couple of hours or so, but is certainly do-able!

With best wishes,

Linda

[Lindad]

Phew! That took a bit longer than anticipated... I hadn't realised that WEST was such a 'common' name! There were about three pages for every quarter!

However, here you go:

Baby's name = WEST
Mother's maiden name = MURRAY

Marjorie West - September 1937 Liverpool S 8b 258

Jean M G West - December 1939 Paddington 1a 58

Sheila A West - January 1940 Richmond 9d 1575

Mary C West - December 1941 Liverpool S 8b 167

Norma West - March 1943 Paddington 1a 46

John D West - March 1945 Trowbridge 5a see D45

John D West - September 1945 Trowbridge 5a 221

John D West - December 1945 Trowbridge 5a 225

Roger G West - December 1945 Richmond 9d 821

Roger West - January 1947 Hammersmith 5c 1509

Gordon C West - September 1947 Camberwell 5c 330

Sonia C West - January 1950 Middlesex S 5f 93

John L West - September 1950 Worthing 5h 614

Not sure what was going on in Trowbridge in 1945! The same baby appears to have been registered three times!

Also not sure if any of these are yours. None apart from the last one (which I assume is you) are in Sussex... but I wouldn't discount them for that reason if I were you. You may recognise some names with family connections, or a place where the family also had links.

Of course, it may be that none of them are yours and that your parents just had a long wait for you to arrive!

With best wishes,

Linda