Girl name Unknown
The quest to find the civil birth registration for my 2x grand grandmother Eliza TUFFLEY proved to be a frustrating yet rewarding and informative challenge.
When I first started looking for Eliza's birth registration, I knew from census records that she had been born in about 1846 in Longborough, Gloucestershire, England. This was supported by finding a baptism record for Eliza a daughter of William and Jane TUFFLEY in Longborough in January 1846.
But searching for an Eliza TUFFLEY in the England & Wales birth registration index for 1845/1846 drew a complete blank.
Widening the search to include surname variants such as TUFLEY to match the family name that had been recorded on the 1851 Census also drew a blank.
Had Eliza not been registered?
Maybe. As civil registration of births in England started in 1837, she should be registered but it was possible that she hadn’t been.
Maybe in fact she hadn’t formally been registered as Eliza.
Conducting a complete search for all children born in Gloucestershire with the surname of TUFFLEY for 1845 or 1846 finally revealed the answer. In the October to December quarter of 1845, the search revealed a record for a TUFFLEY child where the entry in the ‘name (if any) or sex of child’ column is recorded as Unknown. The entry was recorded for the registration district of Stow on the Wold.
This was certainly a real possibility as Longborough where Eliza was baptised would have been in the Stow on the Wold registration district at the time.
On ordering a copy of the birth registration from the General Register Office (GRO), it revealed that Unknown (actually recorded with the ‘name if any column’ left blank) was a daughter born on 15 December 1845 to William TUFFLEY & Jane TUFFLEY formerly DAY at Longborough.
Bingo.
I am pretty sure that this is my Eliza's birth registration. This is supported by the fact that William TUFFLEY had married Jane DAY at Longborough on 19 December 1830 and that on the GRO website it gives mother’s maiden surname as DAY.
So, if you are having trouble finding someone in the England & Wales birth registration index, it is definitely worth checking for children with a first name of Unknown as well as Boy, Male, Girl and Female to see if your ancestor was possibly registered with any of these.