I have seen examples of this many times when looking through PRS and my own great grandmother's oldest sister was baptised Melinda Worden Lane on the 9th Sep 1855 shortly before her mother, Sarah Lane, married John Worden on the 23rd Sep 1855 so there is no doubt that she used Worden as the middle name because that was the father's surname.  My 3 x great grandmother's sister gave the middle name Phillips to two of her children before she married a Roger Phillips and had two further legitimate children with him.   Don't forget that spelling was not standardised at that time and the parish clerks did the best they could with what they heard.  Tender could also appear as Tander, Tinder, Tunder, Taunder or anything else you can think of that might sound like "tender" spoken with a Devon accent.  Also, Plymouth was a major port and it might even be an attempt at a foreign surname.   Joy ________________________________ From: Graeme M Bailey <graeme@baileynet.com.au> To: devon@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, 28 November 2013, 16:05 Subject: Re: [DEV] Meaning of "[et populi]" in baptism record?   Thanks James and Terry for assistance :-) Does anyone have any other examples of this sort of entry? ie mother baptising baby with father's surname? I have heard of children being given the family name by common usage but I haven't heard of of the mother baptizing the baby with the father's name when he's 'flown the coop' or 'shot through' or whatever the expression was at that time... Has anyone got another example of the use of this 'et populi' in another baptism that I could look at? Searching Findmypast for surname 'Tender' found only one record from Devon for the years 1538 - 2005 and only 19 records for that surname total for the whole of UK so it seems to be a very uncommon name? Forename(s):John Surname:Tender Year:1708 Month:May Day:7 Father's Forename:William Mother's Forename:Jane Mother's Surname: Birth Day: Birth Month: Birth Year: Dedication:Thrushelton Place:Plymouth County:Devon Page:Archive Ref:686/1 Notes: Record source: Baptism Register - Transcripts Data provider:Plymouth & West Devon Record Office Collection

I too have examples of this usage. I think the names registered were more likely to be ones extracted by the vicar or rector from the mother. An Examination in Bastardy by the Poor Law Commissioners was a really high pressure thing and vicars had a lot of clout in the village to extract the information as to the father (even if it wasn't already common knowledge anyway). I suspect it was quite rare in rural parishes for an illegitimate child to be baptised without almost everyone being well aware of who the father was. After all, it was in the mother's self interest to name him as she would do rather better financially and socially to do so. Pointing the finger at the father was always a lot more likely to garner sympathy than just quietly accepting the shame herself. The gutter press may not have been around to publish the gory details but social pressure was just as intense then-not least because the child would become a charge on the rate payers otherwise for its entire minority, and the rate payers were your irate neighbours who would want to know who they were picking up the bill for who was keeping silent. Jon -----Original Message----- From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Joy Langdon Sent: 28 November 2013 19:43 To: devon@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [DEV] Meaning of "[et populi]" in baptism record? I have seen examples of this many times when looking through PRS and my own great grandmother's oldest sister was baptised Melinda Worden Lane on the 9th Sep 1855 shortly before her mother, Sarah Lane, married John Worden on the 23rd Sep 1855 so there is no doubt that she used Worden as the middle name because that was the father's surname.  My 3 x great grandmother's sister gave the middle name Phillips to two of her children before she married a Roger Phillips and had two further legitimate children with him.   Don't forget that spelling was not standardised at that time and the parish clerks did the best they could with what they heard.  Tender could also appear as Tander, Tinder, Tunder, Taunder or anything else you can think of that might sound like "tender" spoken with a Devon accent.  Also, Plymouth was a major port and it might even be an attempt at a foreign surname.   Joy ________________________________ From: Graeme M Bailey <graeme@baileynet.com.au> To: devon@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, 28 November 2013, 16:05 Subject: Re: [DEV] Meaning of "[et populi]" in baptism record?   Thanks James and Terry for assistance :-) Does anyone have any other examples of this sort of entry? ie mother baptising baby with father's surname? I have heard of children being given the family name by common usage but I haven't heard of of the mother baptizing the baby with the father's name when he's 'flown the coop' or 'shot through' or whatever the expression was at that time... Has anyone got another example of the use of this 'et populi' in another baptism that I could look at? Searching Findmypast for surname 'Tender' found only one record from Devon for the years 1538 - 2005 and only 19 records for that surname total for the whole of UK so it seems to be a very uncommon name? Forename(s):John Surname:Tender Year:1708 Month:May Day:7 Father's Forename:William Mother's Forename:Jane Mother's Surname: Birth Day: Birth Month: Birth Year: Dedication:Thrushelton Place:Plymouth County:Devon Page:Archive Ref:686/1 Notes: Record source: Baptism Register - Transcripts Data provider:Plymouth & West Devon Record Office Collection ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message