Baptisms / Christening around 1820

[AllanUK]

Entire generations of my Knighton family were not baptised because they were non-conformists. Actually, that's not quite correct - some of them did get baptised, but only as adults.

It's made it very difficult to trace some individuals because I don't have specific birth years for them, only approximate ages. Some family members are only known because they were mentioned in wills.

I have a branch in my tree that were non-conformists making searches for births etc very difficult -- if it wasn't for Census returns; wills and some family documents you would never know that some people existed.

[Miggs191]

Have to say, I’d not thought of being non conformists but it could account for why they aren’t there.
Interestingly,when Louisa and her sister Sarah were ( adopted) Sarah was about nine and christened. Louisa was with the Aunt in Yorkshire but I suppose I could try looking there just in case.
Years later ,when Louisa is married ,her husband has returned,the two illegitimate daughters are living with them including my great grandmother,the “girls” are christened. They are in their teens and now live with their Father John Perry , listed as a gentleman, in a large red brick house between Devizes and Potterne.
Just thought,when Louisa married John Perry in 1846 would she have had to prove she was christened for the marriage ceremony or did they just say they were ?

[coombs]

Yes sadly if it has been a decades long search for a baptism and to no avail, the chances are she was not baptised but never give up hope, as I said NC records but they can be more tricky to find. Some are on Ancestry and BMD Registers website but I do not known the completion rate.

[Miggs191]

One of the main reasons the search started back inn1946 was to find why their grandmother,my great grandmother had the name Sissons. The original researchers died aged 104 and 96 never knowing😢I found the answer a couple of years ago with the help of wonderful people on Roots Chat. It was the surname of the first husband of her Mother’s Aunt who left  Louisa her first inheritance.
The moral being if you wait long enough something will turn up as Dickens stated in Oliver Twist !