I've had little luck finding baptisms that indicated much about a birth date, except to place it BEFORE the baptism. There are even times when a marriage date was given by an ancestor in writing in one place, and the actual records indicate some other date entirely. It could have been that the couple agreed that they would be married at the soonest date when a preacher could be had, and then started living together. The same thing could occur when they had children to baptize. They could have done it at the earliest convenience, not believing that it had to be done immediately without putting the child's soul in jeopardy. There was always the ability to baptize a child yourself if the child was in danger of death, and that would never be registered, I think. And if the child didn't die, then the preacher could be put to use when he was available. Remember, not all these people lived within reach of a church at all times. And some times, if the mother or father took i! ll, the importance of his or her being made well would take on more importance than having a baptism, perhaps. If all you have is a baptism date, then you know only that the child was born BEFORE that date, and only that. We certainly can't make any assumptions as to how long they could take before that child was baptized, especially if there were other circumstances happening at the same time, such as fires, plagues, illnesses running rampant, other children being ill, etc. There are too many factors in real life to allow us to pin down these kinds of things consistently. Some families were very good at keeping their records up and taking care of letting their descendants know what they were up to, and others were like the rest of us have. We're lucky when we find dates that we think are good ones. And even then, we always apply the caveat that they were our ancestors and were NOT thinking of us. Myra Herron ----- Original Message ----- From: j halsey<mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 2:38 PM Subject: Re: [OEL] Time between births Hello All, My impression from my own research is that baptismal dates are at best no more than a rough guide to birth dates, Some families seem to be baptised in clusters, others baptised late, sometimes very late..Some, in large families, even seem to have been missed. Who knows why? There is a particular form of service in the Book of Common Prayer for "The ministration of baptism to such as are of riper years"..There were two periods when a 3d duty was levied on register entries, the later beginning 1st Oct 1783 and continuing, writing from memory, until 1794. Whilst arrangements were in place for the parish to pay the fee for those too poor to pay, it seems to have had the effect, unsurprisingly, of discouraging baptisms. Not everyone, even in those supposedly religous days arranged for their children to be baptised, and no doubt even those that did could have found the journey to church in a large rural parish a matter for some consideration and, in bad weather, of delay. Some would waited till caught by the parson, others could well have flirted with, or committed themselves to, non-conformism which had its own baptismal arrangements. Non-conformism was strong in 18th and 19th cc. The world was different then, and in my opinion, we should beware of making assumptions. Jim Halsey On 8/25/06, Barbara <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > This has been fascinating and timely for me, worrying again at my greatest > brick wall when this topic arose on the list. > > To cut a long story short I am trying to decide (although I may never be > entirely sure) which of two possible families an ancestor belonged to and > have circumstantial evidence to link him to one family but two > christenings > very close together have always been a problem. I have a child baptised on > the 6th August 1779 and another baptised on the 9th February 1780. > Everything else seems to suggest that they are from the same family but > only > six months separate the two baptisms. However.... if the baptism of the > first child was delayed slightly and the second child was premature and > baptised promptly then it could just be possible, perhaps? The second > child > died almost exactly two years after the baptism. > > Any thoughts appreciated. > > Barbara > > > > > > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > To contact the list administrator: > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== THREADED archives for OLD-ENGLISH: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH<http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH>