Barnwell Parish Registers

[Redroger]

Remember too,that if his ancestors were Baptists then there will by definition be no record of an infant baptism. Baptism in this church is by total immersion of adults.

[bedfordshire boy]

Have you checked Barnwell St Andrew, Northants parish register for his baptism? Unlike many Northants parishes it's been filmed by the LDS so is available to order and view at your nearest LDS Family History Centre. If he's not there then try the other Barnwell in Northants- All Saints. If neither comes up trumps then that's the time to start thinking about possible non-conformity, Brampton Hunts parish register (which hasn't been filmed by the LDS so is only available at Huntingdon Records Office) etc

David

[bramcor]

Thank you, everyone. I would have expected William Watson to be baptised in the Church of England, rather than in any other church, as his marriages were in a C of E, but I guess that could just as easily have been a wife's choice, rather than his.
Maybe I've been looking in the wrong place but I've never seen any Barnwell, Norths records on IGI, though I have seen other Norths records there. Might check again if the site is now clear.
Sadly my local LDS church closed its access to family history research several years ago due to lack of staff (the local genealogy society offered to run it for them but they would not allow non-church members to do that) & the nearest access is several hours away - so that will have to be a future option for now.
I will keep plugging away - who knows what might turn up on the Net someday?? Can't see myself being able to visit the local UK records offices for a leisurely search any time soon (unless there is a huge tackle shop & river next door - that might prompt my husband to book plane tickets from Oz, lol).

[JustinL]

Hello Andy,

Just stumbled across this thread.

The marriages on 18 July 1830 of one of my 3 x great-grandfathers, George Berry, and his elder brother, Robert were recorded in the Barnwell parish register.

The brothers were from Wickham Skeith in Suffolk, where Robert had been baptised as a 16-year-old. He was most likely a baptist. I have found no baptism record for George, but his children worshipped at the Zion Baptist Chapel, and it is reasonable to assume that he too was a Baptist.

Do you know whether it was common practice for non-conformist marriages to be recorded in the Barnwell PRs?

Justin

[bedfordshire boy]

In 1830 the only non-conformist faiths that were permitted to conduct their own marriages were Jews and Quakers. All other non-conformists were obliged to marry in the established church if they wanted their marriage to be legal.

Things changed with the advent of civil registration in 1837.

Post 1753 it wasn't a case of non-conformist marriages being recorded in the parish register. It was that the marriage actually took place in the parish church with a Church of England ceremony

David

[JustinL]

Thank you David.

That's pretty straight forward. I think I need to do my homework on non-conformists.

Justin

[Redroger]

If we can help Justin please ask.

[Jeuel]

My great-grandmother, Emma Moore, was born in Barnwell in 1843.  It was, as described above, a horrible slum.  In 1876, the year Emma gave birth to my paternal grandmother Annie Eliza Matthews, in Holloway, North London (also a poverty-stricken area!), a putative cousin of Emma's, Robert Browning, murdered a young prostitute Emma Rolfe on Midsummer Common and was hanged in Dec same year.

I stumbled - almost literally - on Emma's grave in Barnwell (NOT St Andrew the Less graveyard, but a cemetery) earlier this year.

F.T. Unwin, a local resident of Barnwell, has written several books about growing up in the area in the 1920s/30s when it was still a slum.

[Redroger]

My grandmother, and her very exztended family lived in Cambridge Place and its immediate environs in the 19th century. It looks very much from the little that I have been able to verify that they were part of the great migration to Cambridge in the early 19th century.