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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: Time Runner on Sunday 06 November 22 21:13 GMT (UK)
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Hi everyone,
In southeast England in the mid-1800s my 3xgreat-grandmother had five kids who were all baptized. She went on to have seven more children, only none of them have baptism records (that I can find) even though the family remained in the same parish throughout.
I'm stumped as to why this might be. There appears to be unbroken parish-record coverage for the period in question, so... I'm stumped.
Any thoughts?
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Welcome to Rootschat.
It would be helpful if you could give some specific names and dates, then people would be able to try and see what is happening.
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Were the first five children baptised soon after each birth, or as a group at some point? That might hint to how reliable the family's church attendance was generally.
It's possible that something happened between kids 5 and 6. For example the family might have converted to a dissenters church which either did not practice infant baptism, or whose records are less readily available.
Or the church started charging for baptisms (this was apparently common enough that they outlawed it in 1872 : https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~framland/genealogy/acts/ufs.htm )
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There can be any number of reasons for this. A vicar refused to baptise one of my grandmother's dying chilldren, because the child's father wouldn't or couldn't attend the baptism.
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Thanks for the replies, everyone! :)
It would be helpful if you could give some specific names and dates, then people would be able to try and see what is happening.
Right, yes.
Phoebe Page (née Wood) and William Alfred Page had 12 kids between 1836 and 1856, all in the English parish of Brighton St Nicholas. I've found baptism records for the first five (in the years listed, not in a group):
- 1836 William Alfred
- 1838 Phoebe Elizabeth
- 1839 James
- 1841 Julia Harriette
- 1843 Martha
But I haven't been able to find baptism records for the following seven (dates are birth years):
- 1845 Jane
- 1847 Jemima
- 1849 Mary Ann
- 1851 John
- 1852 Charles John
- 1854 Stephen
- 1856 Susan
Some of the children went on to marry in the parish, and there are parish records for those events, which might suggest their parents didn't become dissenters – I don't know.
Would I be right to think that not being baptized in this period would have been pretty rare?
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Baptisms were never obligatory.
Perhaps the parents "fell out" with the church or vicar?
P.S. my daughters have never been baptised!
We decided to leave it to them when they were old enough to understand.
Also meant I didn't have to make false promises in a church!
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Just something to consider.
Have you found the birth registrations for eleven of the children? William was born before registration began, if you haven’t found registration for the next four, but you have for the subsequent seven children, that may explain the missing baptisms.
Before registration, baptism was your proof of entitlement to parish relief if you hit hard times. With registration you had proof the same proof.
Some people were reluctant to register births in the early days of registration, they considered baptism sufficient. It is not uncommon to find early births in a family unregistered. If the later children in your family were registered the parents may have thought baptism unnecessary.
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Baptisms were never obligatory.
Perhaps the parents "fell out" with the church or vicar?
Maybe!
Have you found the birth registrations for eleven of the children?
I have, yes – or at least I've found them in the GRO indexes and crosschecked their relation to Phoebe and William Snr with census data (purchasing all the birth certificates is a project for later) – so all but William were registered, which leaves the problem of missing baptisms all the more vexing.
William Jnr was actually baptized the year before his parents were married (their marriage was registered in the fourth quarter of 1837, so right at the beginning of registration). I can't help but think there must be a story there, unless the registration came some time after the marriage. And it's tempting to imagine that someone discovered the pre-marriage birth and kicked up a fuss, which then led to a falling out with the church and the later kids not being baptized. But of course that's nothing more than a nice historical fiction! I would love to get to the factual bottom of it.
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Registration began on the 1st July1837.
I can’t think if any particular reason other than those already given for non baptisms. Unless they switched to a nonconformist church and the baptisms are not online.
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Welcome to RootsChat.
In addition to the above replies, I don’t know if this option was possible then, but could the children have been baptized in a relative’s church?
I have one family with the same scenario as your Pages (I couldn’t locate the younger children). It turned out that the family relocated from one town to a neighbouring town (in a different county) but still had family back in the first town. One child, after the move, was baptized in the old town, the rest were baptized in their new location.
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It looks like you Pages were living in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish in 1851. If the current Sussex map matches the 1851 Brighthelmstone, the family was about a 15 mile drive from Brighton.
Perhaps they either chose not to baptize the younger children or there was some sort of issue after they moved?
Update: Spring Street appears to be located in Brighton. So, Brighton was in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish? Sorry, I’m not familiar with this part of Sussex. It looks like they still were in Brighton in 1851. :-\ There goes my moving away theory.
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I had the same thought as Jebber, that the parents considered baptism unnecessary for the younger children.
Have you searched later baptism registers in case some of the children were baptised when older?
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I didn’t spend a lot of time verifying “facts”, but
did William die c1861
did Phoebe remarry before 1871
were most of the children not living with Phoebe in 1871?
If so (I think this was already mentioned), perhaps the family couldn’t afford the cost of the baptisms? Perhaps William had been ill for a long time and the family was not well off by 1845?
The above is most likely far fetched, but just thought I would add it.
Added: do you know if William had any siblings?
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I also wondered if the subsequent children were baptised in a different parish, I have heard of instances where the family apparently didn't like the new vicar and so went to a neighbouring parish for baptisms. My grandmother whilst born in the middle of London was baptised at the parish church of her grandparents some 50 miles away.
Also there is the possibility they were "privately baptised". Whilst sometimes private baptisms were then "received into the church" or other such expressions that you see in Parish Registers, they needn't necessarily be any record of them. Baptism possibly only required for future parish relief claims.
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I also wondered if the subsequent children were baptised in a different parish, I have heard of instances where the family apparently didn't like the new vicar and so went to a neighbouring parish for baptisms…
According to one website (I’ve not checked facts for accuracy):
Henry Michell Wagner was Vicar of Brighton between 1824 and 1870. A lot went on during his time there: churches were built; he was in the centre of controversies and disputes; church rates were in dispute including a dispute in 1841; St. Nicholas was “falling into disrepair” (this was mentioned after the 1841 dispute), etc.
I don’t know if any of the above was true, but the information (and a lot more!) was found here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Michell_Wagner
Could the above have contributed to the younger Page children not being baptized in St. Nicholas. Or, perhaps one of the previous suggestions was what actually occurred.
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That's very interesting Lisa!
As an aside Time Runner, have you seen the reports into the suicide of Capt John EDWARDS in Brighton 1850? It appears the razor used belonged to William Alfred PAGE, hairdresser, I assume your William. Lots of reports in the papers including eg:
Thursday, May 9, 1850
Publication: Daily News
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The reply by Maiden Stone reminds me of a large family in my husband’s line.
No baptism has been found for the first child, then all the following children were Baptised until the last two. They were finally Baptised as adults, when one had already been married for three years, the other for seven years.
Sometimes you find adult baptisms just before they marry, but why the younger two waited until several years after marriage remains a mystery, it is not as if they were close to death.
Sometimes we just have to accept we will never know why these oddities occur.
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Thanks again, everyone, for the all the replies. It's made for fascinating reading and given me lots of food for thought!
Forgive me if I don't reply to every point raised.
Spring Street appears to be located in Brighton. So, Brighton was in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish? Sorry, I’m not familiar with this part of Sussex. It looks like they still were in Brighton in 1851. :-\ There goes my moving away theory.
:) The civil parish was associated with the Church of St Nicholas (Brighton), and "Brighton" and "Brighthelmstone" are essentially different names for the same place, Brighthelmstone being the older of the two.
At some point between 1841 and '51, the family did move but only within the parish.
As an aside Time Runner, have you seen the reports into the suicide of Capt John EDWARDS in Brighton 1850?
I haven't, no! How exciting! Which archive did you find that in, and how did you access it? (I'm new to this genealogy malarkey and am still finding my feet).
Yesterday I found an article that stated: "the religious census of 1851 revealed that half the population did not attend any church on the census Sunday, while of those who did, only about half attended the established Church."* So perhaps the later children weren't baptized because of a change of faith or simple lack of interest. The article opened my eyes to the fact that much of the working class greatly distrusted the established church at that time. I had an idea of devout Victorians slavishly attending church on Sundays – an idea which turns out to have been utterly wrong!
*Stewart J Brown, "The national churches and the Union in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland," in Bonds of Union: Practices and Representations of Political Union in the United Kingdom (18th-20th centuries), eds. Isabelle Bour and Antoine Mioche (Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2005), 57-78, online paragraph 22, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pufr.4041 (accessed 8 November 2022).
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As an aside Time Runner, have you seen the reports into the suicide of Capt John EDWARDS in Brighton 1850?
I haven't, no! How exciting! Which archive did you find that in, and how did you access it? (I'm new to this genealogy malarkey and am still finding my feet).
I access old newspapers at home for free through my Australian National Library Card. This gives me access to their eresources which include British Library Newspapers. I think other libraries around the globe have similar arrangements, so maybe check out your local library.
There are also subscription sites for old newspapers - findmypast has newspapers, and there is newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive.
I'm happy to send you a copy of some of the articles I mentioned. Send me a personal message if you're interested. :D
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I will, thank you! :D
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A lot of Brighton records are not online,this might fill gaps.
http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/igi/
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Thanks, I'll take a look! :)