Quadruplets in 1856
 

My parents are on holiday in Wales and have seen a gravestone in a churchyard with a family who had quadruplets, who all died within 10 days.

The family also lost two other children, and the father, within a two week window.

This is a link to the grave:
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1389531

This is the burial record found on ancestry:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...e8b&pId=380021

From the photo my parents have taken, Isaac (Snr's) age is 32. The burial entry says aged 31 and the GRO death index says 32.

I have found the family in 1851:
https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bi...try&h=15876225

I have also found what I assume is the parents' marriage in 1849. Isaac Hughes married Margaret Hughes in Aberystwyth in 1849.


Just out of curiosity, we wondered what happened to the mother - Margaret Hughes.

There is a possible burial in 1871 here: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discovery...ed634713ec56d9

But I have been unable to find her in 1861 and it is close as to whether she was alive for the 1871 census. She was buried on the 6th and the census was taken on the 2nd.


I've never had to do much Welsh research at all, so the place names are very confusing, and I know that a surname like Hughes won't help matters.


If anyone can find out anything about Margaret (the mother), I would be very grateful!

Thanks for looking.


I must add - these are no relations of mine, just a family who have captured out interest.

Not sure whether you have the parish register copy of the marriage?
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...5e7&pId=381135

Margaret's father was Edward Hughes, a miner.

I think the place is down as Cynnul Mawr on FMP for the 1861 census, and Cynnil Mawr on Ancestry. If that's any help.

A book called Ceredigion Folk Tales has info on this family including the death of the mother, Margaret. I haven't confirmed any of it though:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...hughes&f=false

Thank you Kate - I had found it in the index, but hadn't searched the PRs yet.

I will have to have a look through the '61 and see if I can see her there.

Thanks for the link Merry. I find that scenario quite likely - what a traumatic experience to give birth to quadruplets and then lose all four, your other two children and husband all within two weeks. Poor, poor, woman.

Yes, just awful.

I looked at the newspapers on FMP and there were a lot of refs to the births of the quads, repeated from one paper to another. Right up to 11 Mar they were still printing, "mother and babies doing well". As it would be very likely the quads would die, it doesn't seem the story was perceived as of any great interest or journalists would have followed it up.