Baptised twice - is it legal?

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Well, you know what I mean! ;)
I'm in the process of extracting a particular surname, from transcriptions done in 1920, for two Parishes in Yorkshire ...... Emley and Thornhill. At this time, the village of Flockton 'came under' Thornhill, and the entries are separate for it in the actual Registers.

I found these two entries, which incidentally are also on the IGI as true extractions.

Alexander, son of John Hampshire bap. 15th March 1767 Thornhill (Chapelry of Flockton)

Alexandr. Son of Jno. & Margaret Hampshire of Flocton, bap. 19th March 1767 Emley, Yorkshire

[Guy Etchells]

Yes & no.

As far as civil law is concerned a person could be baptised as many times as they liked.

However baptism is an ecclesiastical practice and most religions accept that it may only be performed once.
The problems arise when one organisation does not accept what another does. That should not make any difference in most cases as most faiths accept that lay people may baptise.
I suspect in the case you highlighted that there was possibly a private baptism then a couple of days later the baby was received into the church but this was recorded in the IGI as a baptism.
Cheers
Guy

[Justme]

One of my relatives was baptised twice. For the first occasion either

a) the weather was so bad the parents couldn't make it to their usual church (high Yorkshire Dales), or

b) the parents were fed-up with the established church & decided to try the new local Methodist Chapel.

Whatever the reason, the child was re-baptised in the usual family church four & a half years later at the same time as her younger sister. I know it's the same child, as I've followed her through several censuses, and checked burial records (& headstones) for that family.

Doesn't it make family history intriguing!

Ess

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Hi Guy & Ess,

Thanks for the replies and it's nice to know that someone else is intrigued as to what happened to cause these duplications! :)

I do have a theory which I will investigate when I 'tie-in' the name extractions to my family. This being that Margaret didn't care for the male chauvinistic Vicar of Thornhill, who gave her no credit for the birth of her son.

Therefore, if she was born and bred in Emley, whilst on a visit to see her Parents, she had Alexander baptised by her 'friendly' Vicar! ;)

[pompylen]

I have three baptism records for the same infant, all took place within the same parish and all over a period of three months.
One is recorded as ‘Private’ and was performed on the same day as the birth; I took this as being an emergency, the parents thinking the child may not live.
The second was in the parish church when the child was ten weeks old and another was performed at the Catholic Church. This was in 1850, I concluded that the parents were Catholic but wanted to be sure of the law and their own faith.

[Peter Goodey]

"This being that Margaret didn't care for the male chauvinistic Vicar of Thornhill, who gave her no credit for the birth of her son."

Diane

I'd be as interested as you if you've uncovered an example of early feminism from that period. But your theory does rather presuppose that the mother was in a position to know what the parson had written.

I have a more mundane theory for you. It's perhaps more likely that the Thornhill baptism was simply connected with asserting the child's right to settlement in the parish. The Emley baptism may have been for more sentimental reasons - perhaps the mother was 'done' there or perhaps Granny was kicking up a stink and demanding baptism in her church!

[Mythology]

Tail end of that sounds good to me. I only have a few who were baptised twice, but (apart from one lot who were just so thick that they forgot who they'd had done and who they hadn't, so had some kids baptised twice and others not at all) they're like yours Diane, two different parishes, and have turned out to be where the two different sides of the family lived.

[Ladkyis]

I discovered on Monday that my cousin Andy was baptised twice, once in the catholic church because his dad was catholic and once in the church of England because his mother might have married a catholic but she wasn't "going to turn into one for all the tea etc..."

Little did they realise that his paternal grandmother was jewish!

Ann

[Mythology]

Going off topic a bit (sorry) but ...
A friend once asked me if it was OK if she brought her daughter along when we next met up, and Westminster Archives was on the agenda.
"OK", says I, "just as long as you remember that she's your daughter, not mine, so don't expect me to look after her."
To make life more interesting for the girl, who had hardly ever seen London ...
"Instead of getting the tube, I'll meet you at Liverpool Street as usual, then we'll get a number 11 and sit upstairs, it's a good tourist route, goes past loads of interesting bits. I'm not fussed about time, so if you're not in a rush, I don't mind playing guide, we can jump off at the end of Whitehall, she can have a nose at the London Eye, Houses of Parliament ..."
(etc., etc., including Methodist Central Hall)

Friend: "Ooh - she might like to see that, she was baptised Methodist"
Me: "I didn't know you had any Methodist connections in your lot."
Friend: "I don't. I hadn't bothered to have her done though, and the Methodist neighbours kept going on about how important it was to have her baptised, so I went along to their place with her to stop them moaning."

In a hundred years time when someone who doesn't know the story is doing the girl's family history, I wonder what they'll deduce from the Methodist records!

[Ron Leech]

Just to add to the confusion the Methodist church in Henley on Thames was pulled down many years ago. Luckily the St Mary Church of England came to their rescue and they hold their services there. So unless you are taking your information from the parish records under which religion was a child baptised?

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

I have a more mundane theory for you. It's perhaps more likely that the Thornhill baptism was simply connected with asserting the child's right to settlement in the parish. The Emley baptism may have been for more sentimental reasons - perhaps the mother was 'done' there or perhaps Granny was kicking up a stink and demanding baptism in her church!

Yes Peter ..... you're right of course! :) The family did settle in Flockton, Thornhill and Margaret's side of the family were from Emley. This Mum and Granny didn't kick up a stink though, when my daughter who was baptised C of E, not only chose to marry in her husband's Parish of Christchurch, Leicester which is Methodist, spending her Wedding Eve with her future Mother-in-Law ...... but also had my Grandaughter baptised at the same place three years later!

I don't force my religion on anybody, so I had to stand by my principles! ;)


A friend once asked me if it was OK if she brought her daughter along when we next met up, and Westminster Archives was on the agenda.
In a hundred years time when someone who doesn't know the story is doing the girl's family history, I wonder what they'll deduce from the Methodist records!

Yes Myth :D ...... if my memory serves me correct, your friend has a lot of 'salad' names in her Family Tree!
The same applies to Debra in a hundred years time ..... |shakehead