Bass Family missing children

A few weeks ago, I had talked about the surname Bass that I came across in researching the Rothwell family of Blackburn. I ddecided to have a further look into the family.

One thing that I like about the 1911 Census of England is that it asks the questions not only of how many living children the family has, but also how many children that have deceased. It's a great way to check your research, but it sometimes opens up mysteries.

I managed to find the Bass familiy in the 1911 census:

In the census return, it gives numbers of four living children and three deceased children. The four living children - Alice, Samuel, William and Elizabeth were all living at home at the time of the 1911 census and so are easy to verify. But who were the three deceased children?

Well, we know of at least one of them, Martha Bass (1885-1885) from previous investigaions.

I did some digging and I managed to find a burial record for Mary Alice Rothwell Bass for Blackburn Cemetery

I then looked to see if there were other individuals buried in the same plot and found a Harry Bass who died in 1899, aged 4 and an Aquilla Bass who died in 1890, aged 8.

So, it looks like the mystery has been solved. The three missing children are:

• Aquilla Bass (Circa 1882 - 1990)
• Martha Bass (1885-1885)
• Harry Bass (Circa 1895-19890)

None of the three lived long enough to appear on any census records, which is why I hadn't found out about them until the 1911 census.

With the three missing children found, it's now on to writing up a family profile for the Bass family.