See below, In a message dated 12/13/02 1:27:08 PM Central Standard Time, chris@dickinson.uk.net writes: > David Henwood wrote (not in this order): > <snip> > > >He had one son, William Thomas who was baptised at Stoke > >Damerel, Devon, on 2/8/1787 - we are descended from him > <snip> > > Interesting that William Thomas was baptised so long after the > marriage. Was that simply because, er, conjugal bliss was > intermittent with Thomas being away at sea. Or, maybe, was she > sailing with him and this was the first chance to have the boy > baptised at home? > Any comments,anyone? I've done a couple of small sampling studies in small Cumberland parishes at the turn of the 19th century. I'm still trying to find my notes on the second one, but I remember the oldest there was a 14 year old girl. Here's one that I posted on "the other list." (ps That "other list" is getting hit with emails with attachments that look to be viruses ; be careful) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A while back I had ordered a film of "Bishops Transcripts, Diocese of Carlisle, Ireby Parish 1666-1812." Found what I needed very quickly and had time to study it. As a lot know just before registries were standardized (ordered c.1812 to be completed by c.1820) the priests in smaller parishes added a lot of great detail. Like ages ! So, at least for a small period in time, in a small Cumberland Parish, in the Church of England, we can get a sense of when children were baptized. I could deduce a number of factors going into the timing, so I don't believe a "standard" can be determined. The one that was most obvious was easiest, and saddest, to prove. I didn't include this in my notes, but as I remember for every child baptized under 14 days old I could also find a burial before the year was out. The extremes ranged from 14 hours to 5 years. Eliminating the skew the average worked out to roughly 2 or 3 weeks. In 1807 3 of 10 were listed as a "fortnight". Sometimes they were listed as "aged" and others the birth date was given. 1803 (excluding #10 average = 26.7 days) 1. 4 weeks 2. 29 days 3. 3 weeks 4. 33 days 5. 4 weeks 6. 22 days 7. 4 weeks 8. no age given 9. 13 days 10. 1 day 11. 20 days 12. 37 days 13. 5 weeks 1804 (excluding # 9 average = 23.8 days) 1. 8 days 2. 27 days 3. 4 weeks 4. 4 weeks 5. 4 weeks 6. 28 days 7. 3 days 8. 32 days 9. 14 hours 10. 1 month 11. 27 days 1805 9 total baptisms but only one with an age - 5 years. 1806 excluding #3 & #4 average = 32.8 days) 1. 94 days 2. 28 days 3. 155 days 4. 408 days 5. 7 days 6. 2 days 1807 (excluding #4 average = 16.2 days) 1. 1 month 2. a fortnight 3. a fortnight 4. 359 days (born such and such last year) 5. a fortnight 6. 3 weeks 7. no age given 8. 4 days 9. no age given 10. no age given Did not find any listings for 1808 (?) and after 1809 they stopped adding ages or birth dates. And no I apologize but I didn't write down names ( I was just another statistical census). David