Anders and Anna still born in 1852

[Katie]

http://www.sukuhistoria.fi/sshy/sivut_e ... 5&pnum=134
The FFHA link above is of Anders Hurskainen and Anna Greta Haverinen and their children. I found a record in Hiski that looks as if they may have had stillborn birth in 1852 yet it is not listed in the above link. Could you please review the following Hiski record and confirm that it was a stillborn entry and was it common not to register such a birth in the communion book?
Thank you, Janice

[Timo]

Yes, your interpretation is correct. The expression is short for dödfödde gossebarn, stillborn boy, as confirmed by the original entry (Kuhmo births 1845–1857).

It is also the case that in the time period in question, there usually was no mention of stillbirths in communion books. And in fact, even children who lived a couple of months did not always make it to the oldest communion books. Later on, say from the 1880s or 1890s, the communion and children’s books became more stringent, with children living for any period of time being logged, and usually having small notes along the lines of “had a stillborn birth on <date>”.

[Katie]

So it was a little boy, so sad. He's going into our ancestry data base, just like my grandmother's stillborn little boy. Timo, can you tell me what would be the procedure for burial for a stillborn or those that lived for a few hours/days. Would there be a small family service, and would there be a marked grave or unmarked?
Thank you again for getting back to me so quickly.
Janice

[Timo]

I don’t really know anything about burial practices for stillborn children. I tried googling mortuary|burial|funerary rites|practices "stillborn" Finland|Sweden|Scandinavia and found some materials that could be of interest:

• G. Andersson (2011). Cultural studies on death and dying in Scandinavia. Oslo: Novus Press. There are two subsections focused on historic practices related to stillbirth. Andersson looks at Norway and Sweden, but the Swedish parts should be fairly applicable to mid-1800s Finland as well, as Finland was a part of Sweden for a long while.
• J. Itkonen (2012). “Kuolleena syntynyt lapsi Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon kirkkokäsikirjoissa 1694–2003”. Thanatos 1(2):1–33. Itkonen reviews the guidelines regarding stillborn children in the Lutheran church service manuals. While the focus is on canonical law, there is also some interesting exploration of context and discussion. There is a short abstract in English, for the whole article you can try https://translate.google.com/translate? ... lapsi1.pdf.
• J. Pentikäinen (1968). The Nordic Dead-Child Tradition: Nordic Dead–Child Beings (Doctoral dissertation). Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, FF Communications 202. I couldn’t find this one online, but there could be copies in university libraries.

[Katie]

Thank you for sending me the links. I'll check them out. Interesting to learn about customs of long ago and other countries.
Janice