Sarah Ship b.1801 Suffolk

[LizzieL]

All baptisms on those chapel records have birth dates, whatever the age of the person baptised.

[LizzieW]

Oh, OK.  But the record is very clear and I think it is an adult baptism.

[LizzieL]

I did wonder but there doesn't seem to be a Sarah of the right age with parents William and Mary of the right age in Snape

[emeltom]

That rather leads one to consider that William and Mary were not Sarah's parents.

Back to the drawing board!

[Annette7]

She was born 1780 according to what is on the image.

That's what I saw, but if the minister started writing 17.. (for 1799) then remembered it was 1800, it might have come out looking like 1780. There doesn't seem to be a William and Mary couple in Snape that would have a child in 1780.
Baptisms seem to start with Mary in 1799, but she died as an infant. A later Mary Ann Ship 1805 was the mother of Emily Lucock,  who appears with Mary Ship in 1841 and 1851 (grandaughter in 1851)

I think '1780' is clerical error too, and not an adult baptism, perhaps as simple as stated above.

Too many coincidences otherwise.  Sarah's husband Isaac Smith, newly widowed,  and their son living with Mary Ship at Snape in 1841, Mary (wife of William) of Snape (children baptised Rendham), and a Sarah Ship baptism at Rendham 1800 which would indeed fit.

Anyway, that's my opinion anyway.

Annnette

[LizzieW]

I think '1780' is clerical error too, and not an adult baptism, perhaps as simple as stated above.

an

But you can't just assume anything in Family History.  You have to have proof and going back to pre 1837 is always difficult.  The handwriting is very clear, it doesn't look as though the parish clerk started writing the wrong date and then changed it.

[emeltom]

I agree with LizzieW. You have to go with what you can see in the registers and that register definitely states that she was born 1780. There is no sign of any attempt to rectify a possible error. It is easy to say that the vicar got it wrong but you will never know if that is true. All part of the fun and frustration of family history research.

[LizzieL]

Is there a Sarah in Snape, who would be around 21 in 1801, with parents coincidentally William and Mary who would probably be in their 40s if still alive. Was William Ship (the miller), the son of a William and Mary and had a younger sister Sarah whose baptism as an infant had been overlooked.
We know William Ship and another man leased land in Snape in 1797 and had a mill built. He probably died around 1805ish. Mary carried on running the mill until the 1850s, possibly with help from Isaac Smith and his son. That could explain why he is listed twice in 1841 - at the mill where he actually was on census night and with the rest of his family in his regular abode (or vice versa).

The nearest likely baptism I had found for William Ship was at Ashbocking on 22 Nov 1767 to Thomas and Sarah. Ashbocking is not too far from Baylham where we know Mary was born (from 1851 census) nor from Barking where a William Ship married Mary Brown in 1796.
Date fits with the newly married couple coming to Snape and starting up a new milling business. 

[Ili1133]

There is a Will for William Ship of Snape dated 1807 in the Suffolk Archives.