private baptism 1799

[Wulfsige]

Apologies for this question - have you seen the parish register image for the Llangattock baptism?  The images are available on Ancestry, but I cannot see any entry for Ann in December 1799. 

Here it is. You find it under Bettws Monmouthshire; Llangattock (spelled oddly) is scribbled at the top of the page to cover, I suppose, the entire page. This is the first entry on that page, Dec 1799: the next is in early 1800. Llangattock was sometimes in Monmouthshire, sometimes in Breconshire (or perhaps straddled the border).

[BumbleB]

Apologies for have doubted you 

[Wulfsige]

Apologies for have doubted you 

Not at all; for I have noticed, looking at various trees on various genealogical sites, that many people seem to copy each other's work without checking, or to include guesses (however well based) as if they were solid facts. Always best to double check.

[BumbleB]

Absolutely!  Always do your own research 

[Wulfsige]

...though it would also be a good idea to see if there were any children baptised at Llangattock to a John and Mary Gamson that definitely aren't your family... you might need to check other parishes around Llangattock too

I have tried, using the spelling Gamson and Gameson (which seems to be interchangeable for the same people), but it seems rather unlikely that there were two baby girls born in 1799, both named Ann, both with parents called John and Mary, both with the same surname (spelled differently by the different recorders), and both living in places where we know the Gam(e)sons lived around that time. I do not say it was impossible! But if that were true, how would I ever know who was who? There was another child-bearing couple called William and Mary (not my John and Mary) Gamson, and I dare say they were related.

[hanes teulu]

Since the child is not baptised at the second ceremony, there remains the question of how to mark/record the occasion. I haven't found directions/instructions as yet how the minister should record the ceremony.
I have seen (a) ceremonies following a private baptism appearing as a normal baptism (b) the entry in the register indicates "previously baptised/received" or similar (c) no record of the "receiving".

 

 

[teragram31510]

Since the child is not baptised at the second ceremony, there remains the question of how to mark/record the occasion. I haven't found directions/instructions as yet how the minister should record the ceremony.
I have seen (a) ceremonies following a private baptism appearing as a normal baptism (b) the entry in the register indicates "previously baptised/received" or similar (c) no record of the "receiving".

In the case of my ancestor the record in the baptism register says "Simion son of Thomas and Hannah Pool was named" whereas the others on the page say "was baptized".
Other records I have seen say "was publicly received into the Church" while yet others imply a second baptism (because that's the only place the priest could record it) which it would not have been, for reasons stated by hanes teulu.

[Wulfsige]

In all of this, as much else in the 1700s, what I am aiming at is the most likely solution to a puzzle; we cannot, of course, know for sure from the patchy and sometimes wholly absent records. I am preparing a booklet on the family's story, at present of some 35,000 words covering about 380 years to ca 1930, as a previous, shorter version proved to be of interest for local social or religious history as well as fellow descendants. Where I am reduced to nothing but informed guesses, I admit it but I explain in detail how I came to the conclusions I did.

[hanes teulu]

Had you spotted the 22nd March 1801 death of an Ann Gamson, aged 2, in the parish of Aberystruth?