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  1. #1
    Wilkes_ml
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    Default Travellers in the parish registers

    I wasn't sure whether to post this thread here or in parish registers!

    I don't know anything about travellers or their religious beliefs, but occasionally come across travellers in the parish registers and can't really put them in strays as I don't know where they come from.

    I'm also curious as to why travellers have their children baptised, or choose to get themselves baptised but do not have their names recorded in the parish register? It this likely to be their choice or that of the curate or vicar?

    I didn't know whether it would be useful to anyone to have a record of travellers baptisms, even without names, as they would be unlikely to be found in indexes with no surnames (most indexes like freereg require a surname to search on).

    And the same for burials, after coming across the burial of a travelling boy at Finchingfield Essex November 12th 1747.

    It made me realise how difficult it must be to have had travelling ancestors.
    Last edited by Wilkes_ml; 03-09-2013 at 7:26 PM. Reason: spelling

  2. #2
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    I assume you are referring to Gypsies in your post rather than commercial travellers or even sojourners.

    From my understanding Gypsy families in the past were as religious (if not more religious) than the general population of England.

    However as today they knew how to work the system.
    Baptism being a sacrament should be free otherwise sin and breach of ecclesiastical law of simony occurs (Second Canon of the Council of Chalcedon 451.)
    However it was possible to charge to register the baptism.
    The way round having to pay was to have the baptism but not the christening therefore there were no names to register.

    Before anyone writes baptism and christening are the same check the thousands of parish registers that mention person x was baptised and christened on x day or baptised x day and christened y day.

    The same avoidance was used for burials but no name was given to the vicar/priest.
    Cheers
    Guy
    As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

  3. #3
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    I assume you are referring to Gypsies in your post rather than commercial travellers or even sojourners.
    Quite

    You may be interested, Michelle, to get hold of the book My Ancestors were Gypsies. There is also a matter of multiple Gypsy baptisms that you want to bear in mind. From the book -

    "There is also clear evidence that some Gypsy families took advantage of the Church's missionary zeal. You often find the same child being baptised in two or more different parishes with a delay of a few days
    or a few weeks between the two. In one extraordinary documented case, one Gypsy couple indulged in 'serial baptisms' for their daughters and had them baptised on over 160 different occasions between 1831 and about 1840 in parishes as far apart as Devon and Yorkshire. The close proximity of parishes in an around London enabled them to have the same child baptised in a parish south of the Thames in Kent and north of the river in the City of London in the course of the same day. On some occasions the father is record as being dead: a factor which undoubtedly attracted greater sympathy - and larger donations - from the parishes concerned."

  4. #4
    Wilkes_ml
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    Yes, I do mean Gypsy...I guess they would be Romany although I do not know enough about them to know whether Irish travellers are originally of Romany decent.

    I am not of traveller ancestry myself, but would be interested to be pointed in the direction of a centralised traveller database if one exists. Maybe having a list would be useful to someone at some point!

    What intrigues me about your extract Peter, is that if the travellers were to generally baptise without giving names, then the odd recorded case must have been an exception where they did give their names for it to be proved that it was actually the same couple in 160 locations between 1831 and 1841! If that makes sense?

  5. #5
    Wilkes_ml
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    Guy, it is interesting that you mention the difference between baptisms and christenings. I don't think many people are actually aware of the difference as so many people often use the term christened when talking about baptism registers.

    Anyway...just stumbled across another traveller (unknown) buried at St. Mary the Virgin, Stebbing, Essex March 22nd 1738

    I also realised that travellers are easily missed on the Census..it was only as I was browsing addresses that I noticed an address

    "Behind xxxx road in a Caravan" that I thought I should go back to and see who was in it!

  6. #6
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    I don't think many people are actually aware of the difference as so many people often use the term christened when talking about baptism registers.
    There is no difference between baptism and christening. Some people think there is and some people in the past may have thought there was. But there isn't.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Goodey View Post
    There is no difference between baptism and christening. Some people think there is and some people in the past may have thought there was. But there isn't.
    I appreciate this is going off-topic for the current thread, but I'm with Peter on this (and have previously argued this point with Guy elsewhere on this forum). I am aware that there are a few places (I would dispute "thousands") where clergy and others appear to have used the terms to mean different things, but the teaching of the Church of England is that they are one and the same, and the text of the Book of Common Prayer supports this entirely.

    It would be interesting to see some contemporary evidence of exactly what distinction these clergy thought they were making, and how they squared it with the church's official teaching. All I have come across so far is modern interpretation and supposition, which might in fact reveal more about the views of the modern commentator than it does about the beliefs of the old clergy.

    Arthur

  8. #8
    Wilkes_ml
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    ah, I see now...it is so much clearer! To be honest I've been reading so many registers from the late 1600s through to the mid 1800s and I don't think I've seen the word christening mentioned once in any baptism registers. May be it could be a regional thing? I've mainly been working my way through Essex, Kent and a few Hampshire registers and only ever seen the registers called baptism registers on the covers, or in the titles.

    It may also be just a modern interpretation, as up until discovering parish registers, I thought christenings were for babies and baptisms were for adults!

  9. #9
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    I do not mind people disagreeing with my contentions after all many disagreed with my statements that stillbirths were recorded prior to 1927, I now have a database of over 15,000.
    People told me the 1911 census could not be viewed prior to its release on 2 January 2012, that was proved to be wrong as with access the 1939 registration.
    All my life I have argued with people who simply won’t face facts when they stare them in the face, it makes no difference to me. But here is food for thought.

    Here are two examples from Bottesford, Leicestershire, baptism register.-

    RAVELL, Sarah, daughter of, William RAVELL & Hannah, BORN 18 Sep. 1797, BAPTISED at Long Bennington, 7, Oct, 1797, CHRISTENED at Bottesford Apr.12 1798.

    HALLAM, Zebedee, son of William HALLAM & Elizabeth, BORN 4 Apr 1798, BAPTISED and CHRISTENED April 29TH, 1798.

    Kington, Worcestershire-
    1794, Sept, 28th. Tho., s. of Tho. And Margaret BARRETT was bapt. and christened in the church 6th Dec.


    Here are some examples that could be disputed.-

    First a couple of examples of a private baptism and what I would suggest would often be noted as being received into church rather than christened.
    Sheinton, Shropshire.
    1765 Feb. 13, John, s. of John Thomas, & Margaret, christened Feb. 13th (being privately baptized before).

    1794 July 27, Ann, d. of James & Mary DUTTON N.B. The above Ann DUTTON was three years old when brought to be christened having been privately baptized

    Others that could perhaps be disputed from the Atcham, Shropshire, baptism register.-

    1788 Nov. 16, Mary Ann d. of Wm. Jones CALCOT, Esq., by Mary his w., christened, but previously baptized in Cound parish on March 22d, by the Revd. Edws. HUNT

    Bitterley, Shropshire.-
    1799, Mar. 24, Samuel, s. of William and Mary CLARK chr. Born Jan. 11th, bap. Jan. 14th, reg. Jan 14th.

    Some people suggest that Christened is sometimes being used to describe private baptisms as above.
    Page 632 of Church & Clergy Law (by Henry W. Cripps, M.A. of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law & late Fellow of New College, Oxford.) states-
    “…If the child were baptized by any other lawful minister, then the minister of the parish where the child was born or christened shall examine and try whether the child be lawfully baptized or not.”

    Cheers
    Guy
    As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

  10. #10
    pippycat
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    For what its worth:

    I always thought Baptism meant a person being received into the Church - usually as a young age, but any age being acceptable.

    The Christening was where you were 'officially' given your Christian name in a Church ceremony.

    After reading this post I'm not so sure now!

    Rebecca

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