Odd Parish Record

[peakoverload]

If anyone has a subscription to the ERO I wonder if you might have a look at something and see if you can understand it.

D/P 36/1/3 is the parish record for St Peter Ad Vincula in Coggeshall. It covers:

Baptisms : 1680-1811
Marriages : 1679-1753
Burials : 1683-1811

Images 2 - 16 are of marriages from 1679 - 1753
Images 17 - 94 are baptisms from 1680 - 1811
Images 102 - 207 are burials from 1683 - 1811

However:
Image 210 appears to be a collections of births 1703 - 1704, burials 1702 - 1708
Image 211 appears to be births 1701 - 1703
and so on back to 1695 on image 214
Image 215 appears be more births 1702-1703
Image 216 more births form 1683

Just wondering if anyone knows why these births would be recorded here and not with the rest of the births etc

[amondg]

They are just that births not baptisms listed by the vicar on some blank pages there are no names for the children just son of - or daughter of.
Recorded for posterity as we now see it but likely a quirk of this particular vicar.

If you look at DP 36/1/1 image 85 has marriages 1731/2 to January 1734/5 and the price paid 4/- later up to 5/-
Image 79-84 has burials 1731-May 1735 and image 84&85 has baptisms 1731-29 July 1733.

The parish clerk or vicar seems to have used blank pages as an account book.

[Guy Etchells]

The short answer is because the law required the parents to inform the vicar of a  birth within 5 days of the birth under the threat of a fine of forty shillings and the vicar had to record the births and there was a fine of Sum of forty shillings if he did not. See-
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01oyv/

The longer answer is births, marriages and deaths were required to be recorded since 1695 to help pay for the war against France, (1688-1697) this was a complicated process with different fees according to the social status of the parents.
See -
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01oyw/

This was initially supposed to be for 5 years under the 1695 Act but in 1696 the Act was amended and the penalties increased (clergy to pay £100 for failing to register a birth, marriage or burial) and no mention of limiting the Act to 5 years. As a result there was confusion whether such registration had to take place after so some vicars played safe and recorded the rather than face fines.

Incidentally a similar law providing for stamp duty on burials, marriages, births and christenings was enacted in 1783, this levied stamp duty of three pence on every registration.

For these and other Acts of Parliament of interest to the Genealogist see
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ms6/

Cheers
Guy