Mysterious Baptism & Burial Records

[AndyH]

I have been searching the records of Baptisms and Burials for my G G Grandfather, James Hunton, at my local library.

There are three entries relating to baptisms (St Mary's, Carlisle) of James Hunton on:

7th   Jan 1847
4th    Jul 1848
27th  Aug 1848

All of them show parents as James and Hannah Hunton, of Castle Lane, Carlisle, which I am fairly certain is the family I am looking for.

My questions are

Why can I not find a record of burial for the child James bn in 1847? (presumably this would be recorded in the same parish). I am supposing that this child died soon after birth and the next child (bn 1848) was also named James

The entries for 1848 are surely duplicates. How could this arise and how can I confirm which one is correct?

(Trusting that someones gift of clarity of the facts is more pronounced than mine..........!)

AndyH

[Clincher]

I have been searching the records of Baptisms and Burials for my G G Grandfather, James Hunton, at my local library.

There are three entries relating to baptisms (St Mary's, Carlisle) of James Hunton on:

7th   Jan 1847
4th    Jul 1848
27th  Aug 1848

All of them show parents as James and Hannah Hunton, of Castle Lane, Carlisle, which I am fairly certain is the family I am looking for.

Hallo Andy, Were the 3 baptism entries you found all in the original registers or were some in transcripts?

[trish251]

If you are using the LDS library films - did you realise the burials for your timeframe are on a different film to the Births?

FreeBDM has a death for James Hunton
Deaths Mar 1847
~~~~~~~~
Hunton  James    Carlisle  25 58

This looks to be your first James.

I cannot find any of your births on freeBDM although their charts show 100% coverage for 1847/48. (This could relate to spelling, I did try the phonetic search)

Trish

[AndyH]

I have been searching the records of Baptisms and Burials for my G G Grandfather, James Hunton, at my local library.

There are three entries relating to baptisms (St Mary's, Carlisle) of James Hunton on:

7th   Jan 1847
4th    Jul 1848
27th  Aug 1848

All of them show parents as James and Hannah Hunton, of Castle Lane, Carlisle, which I am fairly certain is the family I am looking for.

Hallo Andy, Were the 3 baptism entries you found all in the original registers or were some in transcripts?

All the baptism entries are within the same microfilm of the original register

[AndyH]

If you are using the LDS library films - did you realise the burials for your timeframe are on a different film to the Births?

FreeBDM has a death for James Hunton
Deaths Mar 1847
~~~~~~~~
Hunton  James    Carlisle  25 58

This looks to be your first James.

I cannot find any of your births on freeBDM although their charts show 100% coverage for 1847/48. (This could relate to spelling, I did try the phonetic search)

Trish

I checked through the separate burials microfilm, without result. The result from FreeBDM is most interesting. If their records are created from the original registers, I must have missed it

[Clincher]

Hallo Andy: That is most unusual. Apart from the possibilities already mentioned maybe the explanation lies in one of the following:
(a) the baptism register was completed in advance of the event i.e. as a kind of a diary of forthcoming tasks and for some reason one or more of the scheduled baptisms was cancelled perhaps because of illness and the register was not altered to reflect such a cancellation.
(b) the priest or parish clerk was useless at paperwork -that is not unusual in my experience.
(c) the priest or parish clerk had had a snifter too many.
I have seen baptismal registers which contained squeezed in burial or marriage entries -usually in periods before the printed format of book was required

[molar]

Hi,
my grandma told me she was baptised 3 times! Her father was Roman Catholic and mother C of E. Her father did a disappearing act from time to time so her mother had her baptised in the C of E. Father returned and took her to the Roman Catholic church and she was baptised there, when her father disappeared again her mother took her back to the original church where she was baptised again! I have yet to check this story out but it's worth thinking about!!
regards
Linda

[Clincher]

Hi Linda:
Parental squabbles eh -what would you do with 'em?
If the story is true I wonder if the same names were used each time? And did it end up with the priests having a punch up over your grandma?

[AndyH]

These suggestions are very helpful. I will re-check the burial records for March 1847. It must be there. But is just goes to show that these records cannot always be taken at face value and there is invariably some human error.
Many thanks to all Rootchatters for your valued assistance

Andy H