The British army used to permit a certain number of wives (1 in 10, I think it was) to be officially "on the strength" and to follow camp, performing cooking and washing duties for the men.
No doubt a number of babies were born in such circumstances, and baptized by army chaplains.
Where were such baptisms registered, if at all? And do the registers still exist?
The question arises because I have an ancestor with a "northern" surname marrying in Middlesex in the 1760s. I cannot find any evidence of a baptism, or any evidence of a family by that name present in Middlesex prior to them.
The thought that occurs is that she was probably born in about 1745 ... and that raises the interesting possibility that her father may have been a soldier in Cumberland's army, recruited in the north, but who perhaps returned with the army to London after the Young Pretender had been sent packing and never went back up north.
If so ... is this a hopeless brick wall? Or might I find, tucked amongst the records of Cumberland's army in some dusty archive of the National Army Museum in Chelsea, a register of baptisms performed by army chaplains?
