Triplets in 1838

[crawfie]

I have lots of incidences of twins in my tree, but this is the first set of triplets I have come across. Two girls and a boy and Mum all survived the birth, but I think only the boy lived to adulthood. Mum went on to have more children, and eventually died in 1878, at the age of 74. Must have come from hardy stock!

[Olde Crone]

I was idling round the internet one day, as you do, and came across a small site which had transcribed some births from Liverpool newspapers (about 1780 onwards, from memory).

The transcriber had transcribed only multiple births and I was utterly astonished at how many sets of triplets were born, at least one set per month!

OC

[Nell]

I'm not sure what the incidence of triplets is, and whether it has increased (one imagines with IVF and better antenatal care it has) but I'm sure the survival rates weren't as good and babies that were stillborn wouldn't have been registered.

[Olde Crone]

Nell

A distant (and probably faulty!) memory says that twin births occur NATURALLY in one in every 80,000 births and triplets one in every 800,000 births.

OC

[crawfie]

They must have had a lot of births in Liverpool then, if there were triplets once a month!

[Shona]

Or did they do baptisms in bulk? That's tripped me up in the past.

[Olde Crone]

No, these were birth announcements from the newspaper. I was astonished and wondered what was in the Liverpool water!

(I also wanted to know why the person had extracted all multiple births and put them on a website, but that's another question!).

OC

[anne fraser]

OC it is triplets that occur naturally about one in 80,000. Twin births are about one in 80 though it increases with age of mother and number of pregnancies. IVF has increased the number of twin births but in this country they no longer implant three embryos as it is considered too high risk. I have found a few sets of twins from Victorian times in my tree but no triplets.
My twins were at school with a set of triplet girls and it looked very hard work looking after three.

[Mary from Italy]

I came across these triplets a while ago:

Births Dec 1870
Arnold Betsy Birmingham 6d 153
Arnold Ellen Birmingham 6d 153
Arnold John Birmingham 6d 153

I thought they were related to me, but they turned out not to be.

They're on the 1871 census, aged 6 months, but only the girls were still alive in 1881; the boy died in 1871.

[Olde Crone]

I used to work with a woman (tebbly tebbly posh) who was a triplet. They were born in a farmhouse during the war, no electric, no water etc and were quite small. The midwife put them in a shoebox lined with cotton wool and put it in the bottom of the Aga!

They all survived and had at least reached late middle age the last I heard.

OC

[tenterfieldjulie]

Heavens OC I've heard that with piglets and lambs but never babies .. oh well it was an Aga I suppose lol

[HarrysMum]

Although only a single birth as opposed to triplets, my grandmother gave birth to my uncle in 1913. He weighed 3lbs on the butcher's scales in a small town. Grandma always said Uncle Cecil was probably smaller as the butcher's scales always weighed more than they were supposed to.....lol

It was a very cold time of the year so Grandma wrapped Uncle Cecil in a sheep skin and tied him to her chest with her apron. She said every time he stopped breathing she just bounced him around a bit.....lol

He lived to well into his 80s, even though he was an asthmatic.

[Merry]

In Victorian times it would seem hardly any triplets survived babyhood. There are quite a few reports of triplets being born in the papers, but a surprising number don't seem to have been registered for birth despite suggestions they were thriving in the newspaper reports.

The monarch gave a bounty of £3 or 3 guineas to poor families who had triplets, sometimes even when the babies had already died.

It was noted in one report that historically (this was written in the 1860s) the monarch only gave a bounty where triplets were all boys as they would be expected to serve in the army!!

I only found one example of quads mentioned in the paper, but they all died and so did the mother (reported as either puerperal fever or surprise and excitement). It was noted that the children died of 'congenital debility'.


Births Dec 1893
Keith Agnes Tynemouth 10b 272
Keith Elizabeth Tynemouth 10b 272
Keith Joseph Tynemouth 10b 271
Keith Thomas Leo Tynemouth 10b 272

Deaths Dec 1893 (>99%)

Keith Agnes 0 Tynemouth 10b 173
Keith Elizabeth 0 Tynemouth 10b 172
Keith Ellen 36 Tynemouth 10b 171
Keith Joseph 0 Tynemouth 10b 172
Keith Thomas Leo 0 Tynemouth 10b 172


To try and cheer myself up, I thought I'd look to see if I could find any triplets who survived to adulthood. I found these girls:


Births Sep 1875 (>99%)

SAYER Ethel Laurie Wandsworth 1d 552
SAYER Fanny Emma Wandsworth 1d 552
SAYER Gertrude Hamer Wandsworth 1d 552

who are together in 1881 and 1891.

I looked at numerous other families, but in every case all the children died before the age of one.

[Merry]

Just like today when we say never trust what's written in the newspapers, there are lots of reports in the Victorian press of women who have had 30 or more children (and at least two couples who had more than 60 children together!!), women who didn't have their first child until they had been married 37 years or more, one woman who was supposed to have had 12 children in 20 months etc etc etc, so I don't know why I should trust the following:

Exeter Flying Post 5th Sept 1896:

In Great Britain, France and Germany the ratio of multiple births is 13 twins per thousand and 100 triples and 8 quadruplets per 1,000,000 births.

I would presume they mean live births.

A registrar in Lancaster said (when reporting on recording the births of a set of triplets) that the last time he had seen triplets registered was some 12 or 14 years previously, but that they had died after a few days (as did the babies he was reporting on). I think that was in the 1870s from memory.

[ElizabethHerts]

My aunt had triplets in the 1960s but only one survived long-term.
One was stillborn so no registration can be found.
She gave birth to 7 sons.

[anne fraser]

I tried Bath Georgian newspapers but could find no reports of triplets. My favourite twin names from my tree, Noah and Pharoah (Withers). They both survived to become coalminers.

When I was young there were a set of triplets in Bristol, Faith, Hope and Charity and a set of Quads who would be in their eighties now. During the three years I worked at Bristol maternity hospital we had two sets of quads, (one natural and one IVF) and several sets of triplets (mainly IVF). The hospital took in high risk pregnancies from the surrounding area. We would expect a couple of sets of twins a week.

[Merry]

Faith, Hope and Charity

Whilst I was trying to find Victorian surviving triplets I came across several sets called the above, including one set where Hope was given to the one boy of the three.

[Shona]

This thread reminds me of a History Cold Case episode where the team investigated the burial of a mother and three babies. It was fascinating...if just a little gruesome.

The Woman and Three Babies (Series 2, Episode 4)

In the sleepy commuter town of Baldock in Hertfordshire, the History Cold Case team is called in to investigate the discovery of a skeleton dating from around 100AD, buried in a bizarre position, along with the remains of three babies. Is she Celt or Roman? Is she the earliest recorded mother of triplets in Britain and what can her story reveal about the bizarre attitudes to pregnancy and childbirth during the Roman occupation of Britain?

[Phoenix]

God-daughter has been advised that she should not attempt to have more children as the arrival of natural identical twins increases the subsequent risk of multiple births.

One of my ancestors had twin sisters. One twin died at birth. The other married to William Woodyard of Edgefield, Norfolk (Erpingham RD)

Three children survived her. One died with her in 1861 when she was aged 35. She had triplets (Mary, Martha and Abigail, who all died) There is at least one set of twins as well: Edmund and John (Dad was called Edmund) and another child who died as an infant.

I thought there were more, but multiple births seem distressingly common in Norfolk.

[tenterfieldjulie]

We have a family who had 1 child, then twins, then quinss. The oldest child died pre teen she had a lot of medical problems and so did one of the quinss shortly after birth. The others are still living born in the late 1960s I think. A family friend had two sets of twins very close together at the same time .. said she wished she had the help that they got for the quads/quinns. I know there was a big write up in the Womens Weekly at the time. (I think they would be fairly well paid for that too.) Julie

[Merry]

God-daughter has been advised that she should not attempt to have more children as the arrival of natural identical twins increases the subsequent risk of multiple births.



Shouldn't that be natural non-identical twins?

[Phoenix]

I assume that it is pure chance that two eggs get fertilised at the same time, but an egg splitting is an indication that they may be prone to split.

NB I understood that if you had identical twins, they would actually be mirror images. But that cannot work with triplets!

[kiterunner]

I assume that it is pure chance that two eggs get fertilised at the same time, but an egg splitting is an indication that they may be prone to split.No, because in the former case (fraternal twins), you would have to have two eggs ready to be fertilised at the same time, and this can be due to genetic factors or age.
NB I understood that if you had identical twins, they would actually be mirror images.

Some are, some aren't.

[Merry]

Some are, some aren't.


It depends on how long after conception the egg splits. There is a particular window of opportunity for mirror twins and a different one for non-mirror (but I don't remember the details!)

[Olde Crone]

The window of opportunity for mirror twins is quite small, between 24 and 48 hours I believe.

OC

[tenterfieldjulie]

I just looked up the Tenterfield quins they were born New Years Eve 1968 and were in hospital until the end of February. It only mentions the surviving ones names 3 girls and a boy.