Why did parents stop christening their children post-1837?

[majm]

Do the Parish Registers you are looking at have any baptisms post 1837?
Often transcriptions stop at that time.

I think this is the answer to the question ... why did parents stop .... 

JM

[Guy Etchells]

Do the Parish Registers you are looking at have any baptisms post 1837?
Often transcriptions stop at that time.

I think this is the answer to the question ... why did parents stop .... 

JM

I would suggest it answers a different question E.G. why can't I find an online Baptism.
Certainly in the UK this is answered by the fact that many transcripts stop with the change of format of parish registers in 1813 when 'Roses Act' came into effect.
It was thought that these new records were easy to read and transcription was no longer required.

This early end point was often repeated by Family History Societies when they became popular from the mid 1970s, possibly because the 1813 Act meant a change to a new register and that register was often still in use in many parishes, meaning it was more difficult to gain access to it for transcription purposes.

Here in the UK Parish Registers still record baptisms, marriages and burials though it is true there has been a big but gradual drop off  since the mid 18th century (circa 1740).
It is also recorded that in the years before civil registration there was a surge in registrations in Parish Registers.

We are very lucky these days that a number of companies are digitising original parish registers and making the resultant images available online.
It should however be remembered that many use a false end point of 100 years from present due to the paranoia about privacy rather than the end of registered events.

Cheers
Guy

[ThrelfallYorky]

I'd had a similar problem, but had always assumed that for a long time as marriages were performed in the Parish Church - that is, Anglican, and burials would take place in the graveyard attached, because non-conformist chapels were usually not licensed to perform marriages. So although marriages and burials are often available online fairly easily, non-conformist baptismal records, especially from Baptist chapels - which usually took on adult baptisms, when people were judged mature enough to make their own decisions - were not as freely available. And Quakers, as I found, also had their own different ways of recording membership and births to members.

[BumbleB]

There is also the added factor - non-conformists were exactly that, they did not have to conform, they did not have to submit their registers (or copies) to anyone.  They could do exactly what they liked with them - burn them, tear them up, keep them, whatever:-\

[ThrelfallYorky]

...All to frustrate their ancestor-seeking descendants? Anyone else got ancestors belonging to that sect?

[Craclyn]

...All to frustrate their ancestor-seeking descendants? Anyone else got ancestors belonging to that sect?

I have several lines that disappear into thin air thanks to dissenting baptisms and irregular border marriages 

[BumbleB]

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!  And I've got a Wesleyan Missionary in the family, who went to South Africa in 1819 - but I've trace him and visited some of his Mission Stations 

[Maiden Stone]

I'm wondering if it was economically driven.  It was compulsory to register and cost money so perhaps people didn't have the means to also pay the church to baptise their kids.

Registering a birth didn't cost, if done within a set time. Fees were charged for late registrations.
"... every Registrar ….  register soon after the Event as conveniently may be done, without Fee or Reward save as herein-after mentioned …"
(1836 Act for the registering of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England)

[coombs]

...All to frustrate their ancestor-seeking descendants? Anyone else got ancestors belonging to that sect?

I have several lines that disappear into thin air thanks to dissenting baptisms and irregular border marriages 

Same here. I have a Nathan Jackson Quilter born c1752 in my tree. I have never been able to find his parents or any known siblings. I ssuspect the dreaded non conformity. Nathan left a will in 1817 but it only mentions children and wife, no siblings, cousins or parents.