In Ancestry, at
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/160990:2972?tid=178469862&pid=302318688977&queryId=9fbe23a5032fce6b670b5f305ded5e89&_phsrc=ZCy4&_phstart=successSourceyou can (if you have a subscription) see a page of the Morice Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel Baptism records. (I have not attached the page image in case of a copyright issue)
I have three closely-related questions:
1. One entry on the page - for Mary Nodder - is different from the rest in having no details apart from her parents names. Instead there is a blank space, almost as if something has been deleted or deliberately omitted. Curious!! Any ideas why? Of course, Mary is the person I am interested in. Sod's Law! There is no issue of illegitimacy etc involved as this is the sixth (of seven) children born to Joseph Elias and Arminell, and all seven were baptised in this Chapel and the other six provide dates both of baptism and of birth. Mary also did not die in infancy - she lived for 54 years until 1861 - so it probably wasn't any sort of 'emergency' baptism.
2. The entries on the page are only very roughly in order of baptism date. I cannot think of any way this could happen in a register. Any ideas?
3. Finally, does anyone know of any other source which would allow me to pinpoint Mary Nodder's
precise birth date? I have searched quite hard with no joy, but I don't have the skills or knowledge of many of you Rootschatter experts.
Two thoughts:
It could be that the document scanned by Ancestry is actually a transcript, not the 'original' baptism register. Certainly the handwriting is all the same... The description of the source in Ancestry does not, though, say it was a transcript. Instead it states it comes from "
Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths surrendered to the Non-parochial Registers Commissions of 1837 and 1857".
I do know that the Chapel in Morice St was not actually built until 1807 (the year of Mary's baptism). Before then the congregation met in the “
‘Higher Room’ in Princes Street where workers from the parent Ker Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel began services.” (Source:
https://www.olddevonport.uk/Morice%20Street%20Wesleyan%20Methodist%20Chapel.htm). Hence could it possibly be that baptisms were undertaken in two locations around this time, but there was only one shared register...? I'm clutching at straws!
Thanks in advance.