Heathen or non - conformist?

[Northerngirl]

Another issue to muse over.

I am having the greatest of trouble trying to find even one single baptism for my ancestors - is it just my bad luck that they all seem to be heathens!

I have spent many hours looking for a marriage or baptism without much luck.

My great grandparents were married in a registrars office.  There is no indication that a child's birth was imminent or that either of the couple were widowed.  Of all their children's births only the youngest child is baptised in a private baptism suggesting that the child was expecting to die. 

My grandmother was married in a Presbyterian ceremony and the entry in the previous year's church minutes book describes her as 'a former member of the Church of England'.  My grandfather was Scottish born and it may have been this influence that lead them to a Presbyterian marriage.  My father and his three siblings were subsequently baptised into the Presbyterian parish.

As for their forefathers I have spent many, many, many hours looking at all parishes near and far to their location in the census to find them.  I have looked through all the years from their birth up until their marriageable ages hoping to find multiple baptisms as can sometimes be found- no luck. I would love just once to find a baptism or church marriage for any of them.   

It may be that I will have to trawl my way through all the non conformist records to find them.  I'm beginning to wonder now if not baptising a child was more common than I have assumed  and equally are registrar office marriages more commen than I again have assumed.

J.A.

[stanmapstone]

I don't think they would be 'heathen'  which is applied to persons or races whose religion is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim; in modern usage, for the most part, it is restricted to those holding polytheistic beliefs, esp. when uncivilized or uncultured. As they were Presbyterian, and thus non-conformist, I would think that their children would most probably be baptised in the Presbyterian church. Register Office marriages were very common.
Stan

[Northerngirl]

Stan the term Heathen was 'tongue in cheek' !  I checked it in the dictionary before I used it as apposed to agnostic which states that an agnostic is a ...'person holding that nothing can be known about the existence of God' (Oxford Popular Dictionary).

[stanmapstone]

Hi J.A.
Yes ,I realise that  but non-conformists were Christian.
Stan

[Northerngirl]

Therefore not heathens!!!!

[Nick Carver]

Have you considered that they may have been baptised as adults? One of the differences between Anglicanism and non coms is that Anglicans are baptised as babies and then use confirmation to certify in person that they want to be full and practising members of the church. Non coms tend to miss out the infant baptism and as a result a baptism may take place at any time in the first 30 years of their life. Not good for genealogists though!

[Northerngirl]

Hi Nick

Thanks for the information.  Now this is beginning to look a bit more promising.

I was very interested to read about the non conformists not being baptised as infants. 

My grandmother it appears converted to the Presbyterian faith for her marriage and birth of her children.  She died young and my grandfather married again and was actually 'removed from the register' with the Presbyterains after this.  The minutes of the meetings does state that she (and her sister who subsequently married in a C of E ceremony) and her sister were former members of the Church of England'.  I cannot find their baptisms at all - I checked all the way up to 1921 when my grandmother married (it was her infant sister whose only baptism (for all family members) to be found was the private and thereby probably urgent baptism).

However, it is her parents and their own parents that I can find no marriage or baptism for.  This includes the marriages for her aunts and uncles.  I don't know if I am being incredibly stupid or just very unlucky.  I have the marriage dates from the BMD but can (so far) find no marriages or baptisms of their children.

J.A.

[stanmapstone]

It is not correct to say that all non-conformists were not baptised as infants. It is only the Baptist church that do not recognise infant baptism. All members of the Baptist Church would be baptised as adults.
Stan