I have no idea why this should have happened, but I have a whole family, two generations, up to age 22 being baptised on 27 Feb 1837 at the Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Church in Northowram, Halifax. It seems rather widespread - and why were they not baptised earlier? Maggie -----Original Message----- From: Susan Wiseman <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected] Sent: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:07 Subject: [WRY] Re Mass baptisms Fw: 1837 Halifax baptisms Hi Mabel I spotted this mass baptism phenomena in Halifax too - see email sent to the Halifax list last year. I think that with the advent of civil registration parents were concerned that their older children would not have any proof of age & possibly the clergy seeing a way of persuading those unbaptised to do so & so the rush to church. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Wiseman To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 3:44 PM Subject: 1837 Halifax baptisms Can anyone tell me whether there was any pressure from the clergy to baptise children immediately before the start of civil registration in 1837? I have long known that my 2 x great grandfather & 2 siblings (ages zero - 7) were baptised at Halifax parish church on 26th Jan 1837 - co-incidentally their parents 20th wedding anniversary. Today, researching another family I find that a few days later on 31 Jan a family of 4 children aged from 1 - 9 were baptised together. Looking at the parish registers on CD there were a significant number of older children being baptised in the months leading up to the start of civil registration. Explanations welcome Susan Wiseman Some useful websites - FREECEN - http://www.freecen.org.uk/ FREEBMD - http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ Want to know where a place in Yorkshire is - Try Genuki http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ ------------------------------- 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