Confusing census returns

[kizmiaz]

Well, I'm glad its not just me that is having a hard time understanding what is going on here.

Unfortunately, things seem to be getting weirder by the minute. Looks to me like there were two families with the same childrens names, in the same town but seperated by several years.....



Erm,  just having a think about something which I've noticed which may be significant in this case....

Does anyone have any information on the practises of a religious group called "The Countess of Huntingdons"? James Dove is listed as being christened at London Road - Countess of Huntingdons - Brighton. Google tells me briefly that it is an Evangelical Christian denomination. I wonder if they had or have some sort of non-legal marriage ceremony, which is why no record of a wedding seems to be readily available.

It seems interesting that Emily Elizabeth Dove is baptized exactly sixteen years to the month after another Emily Elizabeth Dove is born. Possibly some sort of "coming of age" for a girl, whereas the boys are baptized soon after birth.

I am beginning to think there may be something to this theory!

Any thoughts, suggestions, or info on this group?

[Little Nell]

From an abstract of a book about the sect:

The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion has been one of the neglected strands in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival. This is surprising, since the Connexion was one of the most significant of the non-Wesleyan groups within the Revival. Its importance lay less in its ministry to the upper classes, than as a grass-roots religious movement. It had its own training college (one of the first such institutions in England specifically directed to the development of ministerial skills) and formed a network of chapels across the country. Like Wesley, Lady Huntingdon started her religious life as a member of the Church of England, and clergymen played an important part in her Connexion throughout her life. But events led the Connexion to secede from the Established Church and to establish its own ordination and articles of religion. Through its preachers, congregations, and example, the Connexion made a significant contribution to the revival of Dissent in England in the late eighteenth century.

You will find records on the IGI for marriages etc in Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion chapels.  I think you will find that by this time, the churches would have had the same status as Methodist churches for example.  If you Google this, you will find plenty more on the subject.

While it seems that there may be two sets of children etc, I don't think so.  The names are too coincidental.  It really would pay to get a look at the original records.  You may well find that the ages of the children are given.  Apart from which it is a physical impossibility for one couple to have three children in 1868 and for them all to be babies when baptised!

Nell

[Geoff of Devon]

My family quite often had children baptised a second time, when another new child was baptised!!

[RJ_Paton]

HUNTINGDON, SELINA HASTINGS, COUNTESS OF (1707- 1791),

English religious leader and founder of a sect of Calvinistic Methodists, known as the Countess of Huntingdons Connection

More info at http://70.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HU/HUNTINGDON_SELINA_HASTINGS_COUNTESS_OF.htm

[somerlea]

I specially interested in the comment about children being re-baptised.  This happened in my husband's family, but in this case, when the husband remarried, the 'new' wife being given as the mother each time.  We picked this up on the fourth! occassion, when the eldest child's age was given in the baptism record.