Missing names in baptism records

[zumaro]

A simple question, as I have come across it twice recently - I find a baptism entry, neatly laid out with parents names and location, but the child's name and gender are missing.  Is this simply a case of the child having died, before being baptized? Or the clergyman forgot to fill it in?


An example is the attached picture for Unnamed Campbell, baptized(?) on 25 July 1746 in Watten, parents William Campbell and Christian Budge (OPR births 042/10/163 Watten).  Family trees keep claiming that there is a Janet Campbell born to these parents, but I can see no evidence of this, unless this unnamed child is her.

[Rosinish]

Is it possible to go back to the SP image & make the 'contrast' darker/clearer & post a better snip with surrounding info. to compare with that of others on the same page please?

As this is on the 'Scotland' board, with no reference to which county, for the benefit of others who may wish to help, Watten is a Parish in the County Caithness.

Annie

[zumaro]

I was wary of copyright! I think this is removing some of the background bleed. I immediately notice that "called" is repeated, and there are no witnesses, unlike any of the others.

[Rosinish]

The image is illegible when enlarged, can you please go back to the image & use the 'Adjust contrast' option to make it clearer?

It's also best to 'save as' a jpeg image rather than download as a pdf.

Annie

[zumaro]

Sorry - I was downloading as jpg, but I had to shrink the size to try and get the image below 500kb. This is now full-size, cropped and some change in contrast to make the blacks a bit darker, and the whole image less grey.  I can read it relatively easily - I wouldn't want to read much more than a few entries before I went blind, but I can see what it says!


Thanks for the help.

[Neale1961]

It looks to me as if the baptism you are interested in has been left incomplete. Space has been left so that the detail of child's name, and sponsors could be recorded, but the church cleric has not done it.
Have tried to improve snip here; maybe no different.

[zumaro]

So that's my big question - was this a practice that people have seen before? I am pretty certain this is the second time I have seen much the same thing, but I'm not sure why it would be left blank.  Its not like the parents accidentally missed the service, and turned up the next week - the next baptism is in 1750.  If the child had died, I assume it wouldn't be baptized posthumously, so maybe this is the situation.

[aghadowey]

In some Presbyterian registers in Ireland even far into the 1800s it wasn't uncommon to find details like this missing in the records. The most likely reason being that most baptisms took place at home when either clergyman was sent for or was visiting members of his congregation. At some point afterwards a notation of the baptism would have been made. Perhaps he forgot the child's name or parents hadn't yet selected child's Christian name.

[Forfarian]

It may not, of course, have been the Minister, but the Session Clerk, who wrote up the register. He may have known that the minister had performed a baptism, wrote down what he knew, but never quite got round to getting the rest of the information.