Oberbuchsiten SO - baptism - abt.1750 - Studer - cross in birth record
A visitor in our center is researching swiss films. When she was looking at the birthrecords there often was a cross under the name of the child. The question is what that cross means.
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Bärbel Weening
Answers
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This may indicate that the child died very young - but without seeing examples (in context, i.e. at least a full page) there cannot be a definitive answer.
I recommend you suggest to this person to post an example in this group.
Whilst it cannot be applied to your question, there is a suggestion on https://community.familysearch.org/de/discussion/129680/what-title-would-be-best-for-postings ... it would be nice if this person could read that first and take it into account 😊.
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This is what I am revering to. There are two different kind of a cross. Did all this children die very young?
Thank you for your help.
Bärbel Weening
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That would mean 8 out of 13 children died young - a large percentage, but quite possible.
Have you checked death records for suitable entries?
What parish and year is it? If accessible from home, I would like to see neighbouring pages before giving a final answer.
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Just in case you cannot view it from home I send you 4 images with many names that have the cross. It is from Oberbuchsiten confirmation records 1708 - 1805, baptism records from 1707 - 1805. The name our visitor was looking at didn't show as deceased in deathrecords that year. Ialways thought that a cross meant that the child was stillborn or died the same day, but that would be a lot of children that died at birth. I hope that you can help her. Thank you for looking into this for us.
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Thank you for the 3 images (1 was duplicate) - Solothurn images are not viewable from home.
Attached is a graph with historical child mortality: I have tried a very crude(!) extrapolation for the Swiss data ... end up at 40% (or somewhat higher) late 18th century. Beware: children dying before aged 5 years! However, from my experience I would say most of them will have died during their first 2 years.
On the sample pages we have 40% / 42% / 57% and (your previous smaller sample) 62%. So we are within the uncertainty, though at the higher end.
There seem to be two different crosses: does that imply anything? I don't know - could be just two different people making different crosses.
There are two very interesting entries:
29.10.1784: "simple" cross and death date 22.01.1820.
09.09.1782: no cross but mentions that he died in Spain in 1809. So we definitely have notes on deaths of adults. Whether in other cases the priest would just make a cross, without an explicit date, is impossible to say without further research.
In catholic regions it was common to baptize the same or at least next day. These are baptismal records - so I assume stillborn babies would not be mentioned (rather mentioned as such in the death register). When checking death records for the same child, certainly more than just 1 year should be checked. Also other baptisms for the same parents should be compared: names were often "recycled" - although there are documented cases where the same name was given to a second child, although the older sibling was still alive.
Sorry if my conclusion is rather undefined: the cross will likely mean the child has died at very young age - but one shouldn't rely on it. One has to check the entire family and then decide what's plausible. The cross could(!) just mean the priest checked the baptism to calculate age at death: is age at death usually mentioned (with yy mm dd) in the death records of the time?
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Thank you so much for the explanation, it is very helpful and I will send it to our visitor.
Greetings
Bärbel Weening
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Just in case: if your visitor prefers to communicate in German, this would be fine - I'm German.
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