John: Families certainly did "jump ship" between any two different denominations. You should bear in mind that there was an Independent Church in Howden (Registers in the National Archives - see the RG4 series of microfilms). I have no information about your John and Ann, but there was a George Golightly and his wife Elizabeth (nee Ward), who lived at Howden Pans, in Wallsend parish, and who had the following children baptised there: George, b 1828 Mar 22, Thomas, b 1831 May 6 and Jane, b 1835 Jul 25. All were baptised on 28 Jun 1837. One wonders why they weren't baptised shortly after each one's birth. I suspect the baptism date probably had something to do with the coming start of civil registration on 1 July 1837. Many people must have had very confused ideas about what this would mean, both in practical, legal and religious terms and I suspect some Ministers may have inadvertently or otherwise, have given the wrong impression to their flocks. However, there again, I must ask whether George and Elizabeth were regular attenders if they had gone nine years without having any of their children baptised, so how would they have known what the Minister's attitude was? Perhaps popular uninformed gossip had been the main influence on their actions. Incidentally, this George Golightly was a trimmer, which means he, and colleagues, worked in the holds of colliers into which coal had been "teemed" from the staithes and it was their job to ensure it was properly distributed, so that the ship would be evenly loaded and safe to go to sea. Trimming was a nasty, dirty, hard job - and a very dangerous one as well. I agree that the surname has been present in both counties - and still is. There was a moderately large firm of "earth movers" named Golightly, a name which caused some amusement to those who saw their bulldozers etc in action (rather like the demolition firm named Tremble, which pulled down most of the older houses in Byker!). They had the contract to operate a small opencast coal site just south of Ryton in about the 1980s and my aunt's brother-in-law, who lived on a farm whose land was involved, used to "keep his eye" on what was going on. If anything displeased him about it he would just say "I'll have a word with Mr Golightly about this" - and he did, usually with good results - I think he knew him personally. Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: JOHN GOSLING <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:46 Subject: [NMB] Lookup request: Golightly, Wallsend, Howden, circa 1821-1841 Hi All, Has anyone come across the Golightly family at all? I have a John Golightly, born 1798 in Byker Bar, married to an Ann Douglas, born 1802. They were married 12/04/1823 at All Saints - you can find the Bishops Transcriprs record on Familysearch.org site, 1823-1830, image 33 of 713. It looks like, going by census records, that they were then resident Wallsend, and or Howden (it's all a bit unclear though I believe the two were adjacent.) Daughter Elizabeth, born 1824 according to census in Walls End is one example of their supposed presence there. But I can't see the name Golightly appear at all in the Bishops Transcripts for Wallsend. I have had one example in my tree of people jumping ship from CofE to Wesleyan, but I've not evidence this happened here. Can anyone point me at other likely places to track down baptism records? Regards John .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message