I was reading through a Bible transcription last night and about every other person would have a list of sponsors after their name. Some sponsors appeared after the baptism date and some just appeared after the person's name or birth date. Please forgive my ignorance, but is this a catholic thing? I'm thinking it might be, because of the age of the babies when they were baptised. I don't know much about the denominations, but I believe the Catholics baptize babies. Maybe other denominations do? I don't know. Just wondering if anyone's heard of Sponsors in a family Bible. -- Cara (Gregory) Showers Anchorage, Alaska cara@dcdesign.com

on 5/31/01 5:18 PM, Cara Showers at cara@dcdesign.com wrote: > I was reading through a Bible transcription last night and about every other > person would have a list of sponsors after their name. Some sponsors > appeared after the baptism date and some just appeared after the person's > name or birth date. > > Please forgive my ignorance, but is this a catholic thing? I'm thinking it > might be, because of the age of the babies when they were baptised. I don't > know much about the denominations, but I believe the Catholics baptize > babies. Maybe other denominations do? I don't know. I'm no expert on religion, but most Protestant and Catholic religions baptize babies soon after birth, or at least a few years after birth. This would apply to the Anglican Church of England (official church of Virginia until the Revolution), Lutherans, Catholics. This was so the baby wouldn't burn in hell if it died in infancy. The Baptists and other fundamentalists hold that baptism should only be done when a person is of an age to understand what he/she is doing, and willingly undergo being saved. Therefore, it would not be unsual to see 'sponsors" (i.e., Godparents) in a family bible after the baptismal date of the baby/child. In Anglican records, I have noticed a conspicuous pattern of sponsors/Godparents, which is that if it is a boy baby, there are two male sponsors and one female. And the reverse for a girl baby. Further, the sponsors of, say, a boy, will be two males on the father's side, and one female on the mother's side, and again, vice verse for a girl. I use the Albemarle Parish Register as my source for this. I could well be wrong. Craig