Not counted

Most of research, genealogical and otherwise, is a systematic, plodding process with few surprises. And then there are days where you find an ancestor's name on an unexpected document. 

This happened just yesterday, working through the shaky leaves on one branch of my family tree (for those people who only deal with the living, the shaky leaves are an indication that Ancestry's logarithm has turned up a potential source of information on a person; when your tree is extensive like mine, there are literally hundreds of leaves to sort through.). 

The leaf in question led to a birth certificate from Deer Lodge, Montana for my grandaunt Florence (my maternal grandmother's sister). Florence was the family 'keeper:' the one who stashed letters and objects and documents--neatly labeled in her square-block handwriting, and opened her home when her sister Ella was widowed, taking in more than one of her five children. Florence had two children of her own, as chronicled in the family history she so painstakingly curated and passed down, so I wasn't surprised to see a hint for a birth certificate with her listed as the mother (and her husband as the father). 

What made me gasp though--and I did gasp--was the information in the certificate. The first name of the child was blank. Perhaps they hadn't named her yet? Not unheard of. But then the date, March 21, 1910, which was years off from my records, and the notation, "stillborn." Florence and Claude's second child, a girl, was born dead. 

We have lost a daughter to stillbirth; the pain may be more subdued now, but things like this do jar me and tears well in my eyes: for my own pain, and now, for Florence's pain. I understand how wrought something as innocuous as the question, "how many children do you have?" is. The 1910 census where her small family appears is dated April 18, not even a month after she and Claude lost their daughter. "Mother of how many children?" it asks; column 10 asks "Number born" and column 11, "Number now living." Both columns in her entry say "1." For instructions to the enumerators state, "stillborn children are not to be counted." Even though they very much do. 

1910 Census