Non conformists

[Barnzzz]

Good evening, I've just spent about half an hour reading through the new posts where non conformists were mentioned several times. Suddnely I reaslised that I didn't know what they were ! It may turn out to be important at some point in my life, so I'd be very grateful if some kind soul could explain ? |help|

Thanks ever so
Sue

[v.wells]

Anyone that didn't belong to Church of England - methodist, baptist, catholic, weslyean. Hope that helps!

[Jan1954]

Liberalhistory.org - on their Nonconformist page you will find all you need to ever know - and more!

[Alan Welsford]

Good summary by Vanessa.

For a fuller explanation, try Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_conformist

Alan

EDIT

Damn! Once again Jan pips me to the post.

[Barnzzz]

Hello, thanks for your help everyone ! It turns out, that as I suspected, it may be important as I have some Quakers called Bobbett in my tree

Thanks again
Sue

[Mutley]

Quakers called Bobbett in my tree

Sue

Definitely non-conformists

[Alan Welsford]

Probably what is most relevant to add, from a genealogical viewpoint is that the different practices in various nonconformist churches will determine your chances of surviving records.

The Society of Genealogists "My Ancestors were....." booklets, (e.g. "My Ancestors Were Congregationalists") are a good introduction to a particular "flavour" of non-conformism.

In my case quite a bit of "My Ancestors were Baptists", which is a real pain when researching them.

Firstly Baptists baptise at adulthood, not at birth. Any record kept of this is probably unlikely to make reference to parents, or give an age.

Secondly Baptist chapels, of which there were many variants ("Particular", "General", etc), tended to be very autonomous, and not make returns of any records to a central point. Many records were considered the property of the ministers, and ended up in private hands.

It's not always true, and obviously a lot of Baptist records do exist deposited at various spread out archives. But equally, the situation can be that nothing relevant has been deposited. Tring, Herts, where my ancestors come from, had up to 5 or 6 Baptist chapels at some points in the 19th century, but so far as I can ascertain, nothing of much help in tracing family history has been deposited at a records office for any of them. (I've seen minute books for one, but if there was genealogical data present, it was nigh on impossible to extract from the untidily written text).

Even if records were available, there may be no recording births to members, (although sometimes it was done). Also, I know that at some of the chapels marriages were not recorded by the chapel, as the law required that a civil registrar was present anyway.

Other branches of non-conformism may tell a very different story. My understanding is that some Quaker churches kept exceedingly detailed records, for example.

My experiences so far, Ill admit have been limted to CoE, Baptism, with a small amount of Roman Catholic and Methodist.

Alan