I've seen that in my family history as well. It was strangest when the parents were trying to name a child after someone, but the kids died, so they gave the next kid that name and hoped it would take on another try.
I am so glad I live in an age with birth control, good food, and antibiotics.
I've seen the burial registers for Oldham in the 19th century- when it was a hell-hole of a cotton town. They're horrendous. Vast numbers of people were dying in their teens and early 20s- many of them, almost cetainly, of TB.
It makes you appreciate how fortunate we are now to live in a time when a couple can have two or three children and see them all survive to adulthood. I wonder how many children of theirs actually survived.
They lost eight children in eighteen years. If they had children at the rate of one a year- which is quite feasible- they might have had ten who survived.
I imagine they were a farming family, living in an old stone house in the middle of the moors. Oldham was an isolated, hard-bitten, rural community before the industrial revolution came along and transformed it.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-10-09 03:28 pm (UTC)Is this just a place for them or can people walk over them?
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Date: 2008-10-09 03:34 pm (UTC)This is the open area in front of the south door of the church. The gravestones are being used as pavement.
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Date: 2008-10-09 03:42 pm (UTC)I am so glad I live in an age with birth control, good food, and antibiotics.
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Date: 2008-10-09 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 08:20 am (UTC)I imagine they were a farming family, living in an old stone house in the middle of the moors. Oldham was an isolated, hard-bitten, rural community before the industrial revolution came along and transformed it.