parents' names not recorded in parish baptism register

[JaneyCanuck]

Just wondering whether anyone has encountered this.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11831-116890-89?cc=1769414&wc=MMVH-VRJ:1481814552

St Kew baptisms 1801-1802.
Lower left and upper right of the image, on two pages starting in Sept 1801 and running to April 1802 -- no parents' names recorded. Obviously, from the handwriting, there had been a change of vicars. Did the new guy just not like that part of his job so he blew it off? It was rather obvious from the entries ahead of them that he was supposed to record that info, I would think.

I might have guessed this was a "no questions asked" parish where people brought their kids to be baptised, like the church in London where an ancestral sibling of mine married, but not every baptism for 8 months.

I love how a dozen kids got no parents at all, but the one whose parents weren't married, oh yes, that one is "bastard son of". 

Of course the name I'm potentially interested in is in that dozen. The fact that there is no marriage for the surname in that parish or environs, and no other birth there for that surname before or after until 1826 ... and no apparent marriage or death for the child ... is just icing. It would support my suspicion that this was a "bastard child of", except that the vic seems to have been quite conscientious about recording that tidbit.

Has anyone invented the time machine for throttling dead people yet?!
Or found the answer to "why me" ...

Or just have a theory about why this vicar dropped the ball?

[Milliepede]

Well no never seen that before.  Maybe he was saving on ink 
Or entered them all retrospectively and couldn't remember the details! 

[JaneyCanuck]

Heh, bad job of saving on ink - very profligate with it, as compared to the spidery writing of the predecessor!

I did wonder about them all being entered in a batch post facto, but they were all in proper order with dates recorded - and now I see there is one more; after that batch comes one with the proper info, then another one with none.

One of those little mysteries we will never know the answer to, as if there weren't enough in our own trees. I just know that my grx4 grfather the parish clerk elsewhere in Cornwall would never have let such a thing happen! He was "a worthy man", so sayeth the parish burial record. Of course, an awful lot of people at Anc'y seem to think he snuck over to Tennesse in 1775 and sprang off a son and left him there ... morons; but then they pays Anc'y their money and they gets their leafy ancestors.

I did wonder for a bit whether the woman who died a few years later, who was "an excellent woman & great sufferer", was his wife and had a different perspective on living with such a worthy man, but she turned out to be married to some other guy. Anyhow, I evidently have BMDs in the blood.

If my ancestor is watching, I hope he's throttling that vicar for me as we speak.

And if anybody sees a loose Ann Hughes baptised 1801 in Kew kicking around in any records anywhere ...

[mrsruz]

Seems unlikely I know, but any possibility they could have been foundling children, therefore parents names not known.

[JaneyCanuck]

Great minds - that was one of my first thoughts too - especially given how the babe I'm interested in promptly disappeared, at least by that name. But as you can see on the image, it was baptisms over several months, and the only baptisms over that period, preceded and succeeded by line after line of perfectly regularly recorded events.

Reconstruction of events seemed like the most likely, but even that made little sense.

If they were getting baptised, then somebody was doing it ... even if they were vicarless, would somebody travel to the parish and do the deeds and wander off without recording them, for eight months?

I might have suspected a boatload of shipwrecked sailors had landed and stayed a while, but with that mediculous recording of the one "bast child" in the batch, that seemed unlikely too. Although hm, the married women in the burg might have been the ones cavorting with the sailors, and the vicar just didn't know what to write ...

I have it. Alien visitation.

Or aha. The old vicar died (the handwriting changes abruptly) and nobody knew where he kept his baptism register. So the names were scribbled on a scrap of paper until somebody found it, and then they got transferred in.

Now that almost makes sense.

[warncoort]

Have you checked Bishops Transcripts?

[alpinecottage]

I wonder if the new vicar had a bit of a roundup  of unbaptised adults, and that's why they are entered without parent's names   

[JaneyCanuck]

Sorry guys, I've been off gobbling codeine and sleeping and trying not to cough ...

I couldn't post the image because it would have meant posting the whole page to get the picture, and I think that's not permitted for copyright reasons. But have a look.

The baptisms spread over the period from September 1801 to April 1802.
They accounted for all baptisms during that period.
Up to Sept 1801 and after April 1802, there were baptisms at frequent intervals, and all baptisms were recorded in the regular way, with parents' names.

So unfortunately, neither the foundlings nor the adults hypothesis really works, since the baptisms were at different times over several months, and no "normal" baptisms (children of married parents with parents' names shown) were recorded during that period.

It does possibly look like they were all entered at the same time, even though they took place at different times over several months. So I do suspect the names were transferred from some other record, or just entered after the fact for some other reason.

Bishop's transcripts ... I'm not very familiar with them. Sometimes the OPC site has duplicates for events, one from the parish register and one from the BTs. Is there a way to look at them?

Thanks for all the ideas! And now I'm taking my cough back to the chesterfield under some blankies and cats, to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.

[LizzieL]

The first baptism where the writing changed it is recorded that it was performed by Rev R Kingdon. On page 14 of the same register burials for the same period are recorded. The first burial where the writing changed was performed by R Kingdon - curate. So an abrubt change in encumbent looks likely and the theory that the baptism records without parents were entered retrospectively seems most likely.