Catholic Baptism

[nina]

I have recently found a baptism record from a RC church for one of my ancestors who converted from Protestantism. It states 'c conditionally' before the date of baptism. Can anyone please explain what this means

[Guy Etchells]

It means the priest who baptised him/her did not know whether he/she had been baptised before and repeated the process just in case he/she had not been baptised.
Cheers
Guy

[nina]

Many thanks for the info. I also found that the baptism took place the day before he married and wondered if it referred to that

[suedent]

At this time if he was a non-Catholic he would have had to have been baptized in an RC Church before he could get married in an RC Church.

Occasionally "conditionally" was used to indicate that a person had been baptized before but not in an RC Church. I have a mixed marriage in my family where the father was Cof E, the mother RC. All the children were baptized RC. Lily the youngest was first baptized in the Cof E Church and then a week later in the RC Church "conditionally".

Perhaps her mother had been ill & dad had been responsible for having the child baptized. I can only imagine the conversation when it was revealed that he'd been to the "wrong" church.

[nina]

Thanks Sue. What you say makes sense as he had been baptised C of E originally at birth

Nina