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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: JanPennington on Sunday 16 July 17 02:59 BST (UK)
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Hi
I had a good weekend last week researching my family.
I found that the father of my illegitimate great great grandmother, had a sister who was a lace maker - maybe not interesting to everyone but as a lace maker myself I though it was good.
Then I looking for more information about a 4 X great grandmother and I found record of her baptism among the Non- Conformist records, recent additions to Find My Past.
When I opened up the image I found a page with the baptisms of Sarah and her 8 siblings all on the same page with only one other baptism recorded. The page had space at the bottom.
A few pages further on was a page recording the deaths of the siblings who died in infancy and one who had died at age 12 and the mother's death but with no date.
Is it usual to have a page in these records for a single family in Non -conformist records? Other records I have seen seem to try to get as much on the page as possible including some additions sideways in the margin.
Jan
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Hunts record office sent me a copy of a list of births recorded at Spaldwick, Hunts, Baptist Church. It listed my 4Xgt-grandfather's children's births in the late 1700s and early 1800s (there being no infant baptisms in the Baptist Church) also, because they sent me a copy of the whole page, there were other families recorded there, some related to my ancestors. This was clearly not the original register as it was typed out, but from the appearance of the typeface it was copied quite some time ago. Maybe the original register was not in a fit state to photocopy.
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It may have been a copy but it was hand written in a book with those long pages. Maybe the vicar had put the entries for single families together when they made copies equivalent to Bishop's Transcripts - I don't think Methodist's have Bishops but I don't know much about them.
Jan
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No, Methodists don't have bishops. They are run by a conference, at which a president and vice-president are elected. John Wesley was the first president.
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I've seen entries for a Baptist family where it seemed rather as if the Minister had kept a sort of pocketbook, with a page for each family, recording births, etc, and of course, when older, dates of baptism, until they'd filled it. Not as confusing as it sounds - and helped to sort out one branch of that family from the other, similar names and ages. So it's not unknown.
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That's certainly what the records I saw looked like and they have been very helpful for me. I wouldn't have found all the siblings especially those who died in infancy without it.
A great help to the present day descendants.
Jan
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The great thing about Baptist records is that they show the date of birth, rather than the date of baptism as in other church records, so I have the exact birth dates for my Hunts family.
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Yes, that was the case in the ones I was looking in, Heptonstall area.... because Baptists wait until there is more maturity before becoming baptised, so births were usually recorded. Rather like Quakers, they record births, which is really useful!
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Instead of infant baptism, my brother and I were "dedicated" to the Baptist church as babies. I don't know whether this practice has always existed in the Baptist church, but I don't think there are any official records of it.
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I think that many minsters did as we've said, and recorded births to members in a sort of pocket book, until they themselves were old enough to choose to be baptised.
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Oh! I hadn't made the connection these records of dates of birth and later baptism. That makes good sense.
Thanks
Jan