Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I was looking for a baptism of an ancestor born in Haydock for years and it eventually appeared via a hint on my Ancestry tree with the baptism taking place in a Methodist church in Bury. A younger brother also born in Haydock was also baptised in Bury. The family had links to Bury and returned there at a later date. Anyone else found baptisms some distance away from the births?


Blue

Hi Blue ...my grandmothers sister was born Great Budworth and baptised in Liverpool some 2 years later My grandmother was two when she was baptised ...fortunately for me the vicar had written her birth date on the side ....before that she was my brick wall....so happy bunny now

Ann

My 3x great uncle was born in Birmingham and baptised in Blackpool six years later! I only discovered this through an Ancestry hint - would never have looked in Blackpool as there was no family connection that I knew of.

The gap between birth and baptism was four months for my ancestor and two months for his younger brother. His son my great grandfather was born in Birkenhead and baptised in Liverpool two months after the birth. An older brother was baptised at the same time in Liverpool who had been born in Doncaster a year and a half before their baptisms.


Blue

Visitors to our help desk are often surprised by these sort of findings. We tend to leave the details with them to check out with older family members or documents they hold and then they return and tell us that we were quite right. Yes we are pleased about that phew!

It was quite common for vicars or their curates to run a 'campaign' and bring numerous children of the parish for baptism, often long after their birth year. Browsing the registers can show examples, especially in crowded towns.
D

Can I claim the bragging rights on this topic?

As the parish register image below shows, my great great grandfather William Botham was baptised at Tissington on 6th November 1820, but was born on 6th February 1811. However, his brother Daniel beats even this. He was also baptised on the same day, but was born on 20th August 1808. Their elder sister Ann was married at the same church on the day of their baptisms, so perhaps their parents decided to get several things sorted out in one visit!

But why did they wait for so long? It cannot be because they had not been to the church for a long time, because they had, having had three other children baptised (two girls and a boy) at the same church after William was born (in 1813, 1815 & 1817).

Curiouser and curiouser I hope that is the correct quotation,, The spell check cannot find the words.

daggers wrote:It was quite common for vicars or their curates to run a 'campaign' and bring numerous children of the parish for baptism, often long after their birth year...
D

Resistance was futile!



Liverpool Daily Post - Wednesday 11 June 1862

And I thought the majority of children were baptised so that if necessary in later years they could call on "the Parish" for help.

Did the parents have to pay to get their children baptised...in those poor areas money would be in short supply ...just a thought .

Ann

Yes I believe there was a charge, I've seen a list sometime in the past, wish I'd kept a note of it now. Hard times when both birth registration and baptism cost money, we'd often thought that was the reason some babies weren't registered, but as I mentioned above, I believed more were baptised as they might have needed the protection of "the Parish" at some date, it was like an insurance against hard times.

'Careful house to house visitation'.

It sounds like something from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. "Are there any... children... around here?"

It was the late baptism of one of my grandmother's first cousins that got me wondering. They had ten other children, all baptised soon after birth, and one of them was only eight months older than this particular child. So, I sent for the birth certificate, and sure enough the registered mother was my great grandmother, father unknown. The 'cousin' was actually my grandma's half sister. It was probably a big secret at the time, and given the number of online trees that have this child belonging to the other set of parents, still is.