Baptism curiosity

[lennythelemur]

Two separate baptism records for the same individuals? Ancestry has Cornelius Ellis baptised 19 Sept 1830 at St Mary's Church, Islington, parents Henry & Mary Ann, ceremony performed by Rev Fell. His sister Eleanor baptised same date. However there is also a record on the same site for Holy Trinity, Islington with all same details but with additional birth dates for Cornelius 26 Aug 1830 & Eleanor 9 Aug 1828.

St Mary's is clearly the Parish church with Holy Trinity described as a Chapel of Ease though they are only 6 minutes walk apart and most curiously Holy Trinity was not finished until after the baptism in 1831.

Plenty about Islington churches & churchmen on https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vc...x/vol8/pp88-99 but the 'duplication' still a curiosity.

Thoughts?

Richard

[Lesley Robertson]

Do you know which Parish they lived in? Registration with a particular parish was quite important.

[almach]

Two separate baptism records for the same individuals? Ancestry has Cornelius Ellis baptised 19 Sept 1830 at St Mary's Church, Islington, parents Henry & Mary Ann, ceremony performed by Rev Fell. His sister Eleanor baptised same date. However there is also a record on the same site for Holy Trinity, Islington with all same details but with additional birth dates for Cornelius 26 Aug 1830 & Eleanor 9 Aug 1828.

St Mary's is clearly the Parish church with Holy Trinity described as a Chapel of Ease though they are only 6 minutes walk apart and most curiously Holy Trinity was not finished until after the baptism in 1831.

Plenty about Islington churches & churchmen on https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vc...x/vol8/pp88-99 but the 'duplication' still a curiosity.

Thoughts?

Richard

Hi Richard, Holy Trinity, Islington actually opened in 1829 according to Genuki https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/MD...on/HolyTrinity

Also, I found this ref to Rev, Fell ... "Reverend Hunter Francis Fell M.A., who was Minister of Holy Trinity from its consecration by the Bishop of London on 19th March 1829".

I have examples similar to yours from Halifax, Yorkshire. Apparently, the baptisms took place in a parish chapelry (in your example, Holy Trinity) then every so often the records were sent to the Parish Church to be duplicated there.

[lennythelemur]

Thank you Lesley & Alma.

The St Mary's register is headed parish of Islington and the Holy Trinity register is headed parish of Holy Trinity Islington. British-History AC simply refers to the parish of Islington. They also state that St Mary's was a church from 1392 and the latest iteration opened in 1754, remining as the main parish church. All other churches in British-History AC appear to post date St Mary's completion by some 100 years. There was a fraternity of Holy Trinity in 1467 with a chapel but the existing church was consecrated in 1829 and completed 1831. However the cruncher comes in that Holy Trinity seems to now be it's own parish having been carved in part from St Mary's in 1830. The FamilySearch map seems to confirm this.

That leads me to think that these baptisms happened in the hand-over period where Rev Fell serviced both churches until Holy Trinity was fully opened.

As I say,just curious. Thanks again
Richard

[Lesley Robertson]

It does look as though they were trying to cover all bases! I wonder whether they took the easy path and got the boy done at the same church as his sister then got told it was not correct.. I’m not an England expert, but for a long time, parish membership was relevant for all sorts of things such as poor relief.
I’ll no doubt be corrected at need.

[arthurk]

It does look as though they were trying to cover all bases! I wonder whether they took the easy path and got the boy done at the same church as his sister then got told it was not correct..

If I've understood you correctly, I think that would only be feasible if there were entries for two separate dates - and even then, with baptism being (officially) a non-repeatable ceremony you'd hope the second one would be marked 'conditional'.

Since Holy Trinity was originally a chapel of ease to St Mary's, I think Alma's suggestion is by far the most likely - that the baptisms were at Holy Trinity and the entries were duplicated in the St Mary's register.