Bts Lookup?

[PropPete]

I've found an IGI record of Harriet Gibbs born 24 Aug 1792 christened 29 Aug 1792 Sudbury, Suffolk, parents Cornelius Gibbs and Hannah Gisling Gibbs. By 1794 Cornelius and Hannah were living in the parish of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, where they had several more children. Cornelius and Hannah were not married in Wetheringsett (or I missed the record at the SRO, which I scrutinised twice), and I'm therefore guessing they were married in one of the Sudbury diocese. Harriet appears to have been their first child (Cornelius was 25 when she was born so looks about right for that period). Can anyone help with a Sudbury Bts lookup for the marriage of Cornelius Gibbs and Hannah (unknown) from 1792 back, or is that a cheeky step too far?

[Mythology]

I don't have the marriage you're looking for, but...

"By 1794 Cornelius and Hannah were living in the parish of Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, where they had several more children."
Unless there are two of them (father and son, maybe?) they appear to appear to have been there later in 1792 as well. I have (from Archive CD Books) the Harleian Society's Archdeaconry of Sudbury marriage licence allegations, and Cornelius Gibbs of Brockford is listed as the bondsman for a licence issued 31 December 1792 for the marriage of Jn. Cuthbert of Stowmarket and Mary Gibbs of Brockford, to take place at Wetheringsett.

Now, I don't know what you mean by the Sudbury *Diocese*, but, something you should be aware of...
"I've found an IGI record of Harriet Gibbs born 24 Aug 1792 christened 29 Aug 1792 Sudbury, Suffolk"

No, what you have found is something that the LDS have labelled as "Sudbury" because (presumably) they aren't sure what they are looking at.

All those IGI "extracted" entries labelled simply "Sudbury", with no indication of which church, and with a batch number but no Source Call number, are from the Archdeacon's Transcripts (often referred to as Bishop's Transcripts, because that's what they usually are elsewhere in the country) and that baptism could have taken place in any one of well over 200 parishes in the *Archdeaconry* of Sudbury - including Wetheringsett, of course, though I expect you've already been through the Wetheringsett register for other things so would have noticed it if that was the case.

[Mythology]

By the same token (as you have probably realised now, but I'll add it just in case)...

"Can anyone help with a Sudbury Bts lookup"

Sudbury Bts = Sudbury Bishop's Transcripts = Sudbury Archdeacon's Transcripts.
So, what you're asking (which I guess you didn't realise!) is for someone to go through entries for over 200 parishes, in copies of parish registers sent in on a yearly basis, so you'd have to start all over again each year.

They do have their uses - sometimes errors in the original register have been corrected in the transcripts, and there are cases like Alpheton where the parish register is missing for about ten years so the transcript is all you have, but generally I would *start* with the parish registers and only resort to the Archdeacon's Transcripts if there's something fishy or something missing.

[PropPete]

Mmmm.... I don't know what I meant by diocese either - I meant parish!
I did know that Sudbury was different from the rest of the country - it says so in Mark Herber's book Ancestral Trails - but I didn't realise the implications. Perhaps I'd hoped that someone had an indexed database of Bts for Sudbury.
I have in my direct line six consecutive Cornelius Gibbs', all eldest sons (except maybe the first one b1715, whose siblings I've yet to discover). That makes my life v. difficult, to say the least. Mary, who married John Cuthbert, was a sister of Cornelius 1767-1801 (he's the subject of my original query), and a daughter of Cornelius 1742-1799. As you imply, either could have been the bondsman.
I shall have to visit the SRO again and check, for the third time, that there's no record of the marriage in Wetheringsett. It has occurred to me that a few years may be missing from the records and I hadn't noted the fact. Because Cornelius' wife was named Hannah Gisling Gibbs in the IGI record of their daughter's birth, I'm guessing that her maiden name was Gisling (or Gosling, Gillings etc.). It was quite common in my family to carry maiden names in this way after marriage. I thought it was rather pretentious of them at first, until I realised it was also common practice at that time.
Thanks for your help which, as always, is very informative.

[Mythology]

Always worth double-checking, but the chances are, of course, that the marriage is in the bride's parish, wherever that was, so you probably haven't missed it, and that 1792 baptism may well be in her home parish too, to keep her side of the family happy.

Re the Gisling name, one never knows with the IGI, as they are inconsistent in the way they show things. For example, they don't *usually* give the woman's *married* surname, so you just get something like "Mary" with no surname at all, or "Mary Robertson" to indicate that she's née Robertson if the register includes her *maiden* name. However...
In this lot of transcripts, they seem to have consistently worked to a system of including the mother's *married* name, preceded by her *maiden* name if included in the original. For example, children of Thomas Debenham and Ann (née Bigsby) are shown with the mother as "Ann Bigsby Debenham" - not because she ever called herself "Ann Bigsby Debenham", but simply because the Bigsby maiden name is given in the original, and that's the way the LDS have decided to show it with this lot.
So, while it is possible that Hannah could have had a genuine middle name and been, say, Hannah Gisling Jenkins, with the maiden name not recorded in the original, so just "Hannah Gisling Gibbs" on the IGI, I would say there is a very good chance that she is indeed née Gisling. I don't know, of course, what's shown on the later baptisms at Wetheringsett that you've seen the originals of, but you may not find the "Gisling" name given as if it was a middle name anywhere other than in that IGI entry!

[Peter Goodey]

Mmmm.... I don't know what I meant by diocese either - I meant parish!
I think you probably meant to mean Archdeaconry.


I did know that Sudbury was different from the rest of the country
Now I'm intrigued. How is it different?

[PropPete]

In Mark Herber's book, it says about Bishops' Transcripts, "....annual list of baptisms, marriages and burials....and send it to the bishop (or sometimes, for example in Suffolk, to an archdeacon)". So it isn't really different at all, except the receipient was the Archdeacon! I'm obviously confusing my sees, diocese and parishes!

[PropPete]

oh, and archdeaconries!

[Peter Goodey]

I'm obviously confusing my sees, diocese and parishes!
Well, I certainly haven't got a handle on it all.

In Kent for example, the surviving registers of the parish of Stalisfield run from 1699.

To get us back earlier, we can consult the Bishop's Transcripts (from 1600) or the Archdeacon's Transcripts which run from 1563.