New South Wales Roman Catholic Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of (No Name) in the county of(No Name) in the year 1846
When baptised-April 22
When born 1845 17th December
Child's Christian Name-Anastasia
Father -Michael Honan
Mother -Winifred Heffornd
Abode Goulbourn (a code Printed underneath this is 39268)
sponsers William (Hard to read surname looks like) Dempey and mary Dempy or Denapog
Cantread the name who performed the ceremony
Re 39268
The Victorian BDM has TWO documents that will be of interest
Year of 1846
Registration No. 39268
HONAN
Anastasia
Father as Michael (HONAN)
Mother as Winifred (HEFFORN)
Year of 1846
Registration No.1556
HONAN
Anastasia
Father as Michael (HONAN)
Mother as Winifred (HEFFERIN)
1846, so this is before Victoria had been hived off from NSW, and it is also before Civil registration commences. So these two documents which VIC BDM hold and which are noted on their own line index as ‘Births” are in fact, baptisms which may include a date of birth. This would explain why there’s Sponsors (Godparents) noted by Hereford. Not all baptismal records are found in the Civil Records, but many are. And, not all those found records note birth dates, but many do.
There are well known reasons for more than one parish register to include the record of a baptism, and/or a burial and/or a marriage. In particular in New South Wales at that time, the clergy were still formally required to obey the General Order that was first issued by Lachlan Macquarie back in 1810. Of course, over the decades, the General Order was less and less remembered, but in general terms, the clergy were expected by the civil administration to transmit on a quarterly basis (so in April, July, October and January) to their denomination’s head office (Diocese) the details of the baptisms, burials, marriages for the quarter year just completed. The Diocese was then meant to forward the statistics to the civil administration, basically to help determine the population and therefore check their current planning arrangements etc.
So, sometimes in the BDM indexes in the years before civil registration commences, you can find two or more registrations for the same event. I have one ancestor (a female) whose baptism was recorded in five different parish registers, yet her twin brother’s baptism (same day, same clergy, same location) is found just twice, (running numbers on the indexes too, same page on the original parish register).
So clearly Anastasia’s baptism occurred in that part of NSW that has been Victoria since 1851, as the 39268 reference is a reference from VIC BDM’s current index.
https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm/indexsearch.dojHereford, may I mention here that each of the colonies (now states) in the Antipodes was treated by Britain as a separate jurisdiction. So in the same way that New Zeland has its own BDM, so too each of the other colonies had their own BDM, and because each of those other colonies are now states, they each continue to be separate jurisdictions in their own right. So for example, each continues to have its own parliament, its own police force, its own BDM, and many other separate institutions. Our Federal Parliament (Canberra) has its own written constitution, which commences in 1901. Our States constitutions commence back in the 1800s, when Britain granted self government to each colony at separate times in their written histories.
As an aside, NSW BDM's Early Church Records (the "V" in the index indicates these) include Baptisms, Burials, Marriages celebrated in New Zealand, and other South Seas Islands, as well all of what was NSW at that time. However, NOT all the "V" series include at the online index the relevant District code for a specific index entry. (Marriages tend to, but not baptisms/burials). Other offline resources may have better details than the online index.
http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/Pages/family-history/early-church-codes.aspx Cheers, JM