388 Southmead Road, Bristol in 1944-Hospital?

[Peter Goodey]

There is a potted history in message #5 above. The whereabouts of the records is described in the Hospital Records Database.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/h...chdatabase.y=0

[corry255]

I posted a comment but think it was lost somewhere.
I am trying to find the sister of a friend and the only info i have is a birth certificate. It lists name of child, fathers name and occupation and mothers name. the address of where the girl was born is 388 Southmead Rd, 1938, which initially i thought was home of a relative until further investigation. My question after reading the posts is- if the address was a place for "fallen women" why would the birth certificate be fully completed? As you probably can guess, i'm new at this but any info/guidance would be appreciated.

[Megan Roberts]

It depends on how much information the mother was able to provide to the person who registered the birth.

The current rules on registering a birth to unmarried parents in England are:

The details of both parents can be included on the birth certificate if they do one of the following:
• sign the birth register together
• one parent completes a statutory declaration of parentage form and the other takes the signed form to register the birth
• one parent goes to register the birth with a document from the court (for example, a court order) giving the father parental responsibility

The mother can choose to register the birth on her own if she isn’t married to the child’s father. The father’s details won’t be included on the birth certificate.

It might be possible to add the father’s details at a later date by completing an application for the re-registration of a child’s birth.

[corry255]

thanks. do i then assume they were married as both names are there with the same surname? i might have to leave this as have been going round in circles all day and am getting bogged down with the, increasingly interesting, history rather than trying to track down the daughter! on an aside- the address for both is north view, staple hill and he was what i think reads " experimental turner at aeroplane -possibly then says "works". ideas?

[Megan Roberts]

You can check whether or not they were married by searching the England and Wales Civil Registration Index - marriages. These can be searched on line at

FreeBMD - whilst this is free, not all years have been transcribed.

Ancestry - England & Wales, Marriage Index, 1916-2005 - this is a pay to view site.

Findmypast - this is pay to view.

Because you don't know when they were married, I would go with a range of dates, so as you have 1938 as the child's birth date, I would search from 1920-1938, using both parents names.

The other thing to check is how the mother is described on the birth certificate. For instance if it simply says "Mary Smith", then she is unlikely to be married. If it says "Mary Smith formerly Jones" then she would be married.

Getting a marriage certificate lets you go back one more generation, because it will name the father's of the bride and groom.

[Peter Goodey]

If it says "Mary Smith formerly Jones" then she would be married.

I'm afraid that isn't so. She might be married, she might not. Lots of women described themselves as married although they weren't.

[Peter Goodey]

if the address was a place for "fallen women"

It wasn't. See message #5. It was a publicly funded hospital operating under the poor laws of the time. It was called Southmead Institution and later became Southmead Hospital under the NHS.