Hi Everyone,

I'm new here, and will post a proper introduction, but here I am researching the White family of Gosport, Hampshire. I am trying to unravel the mystery of what happened to the family after the father and one son moved to South Africa in 1820. I am currently going through the registers to find all the children (I need to reach 12 if it's the family I think it is!). I have found discrepancies in the dates on Family Search and so have been paging through the Bishop's Transcript and church register at the local LDS Family History library.

I though that Bishop's Transcripts were simply duplicate registers, but I've come to the conclusion that the Bishop's Transcript here is somehow sorted by birth date, not baptism date. Is this usual?

Laying out all the dates against each other led me to another conclusion: I think one child was baptised twice. First assumption was that the child died, and the name was re-used, but when I write down all the dates, I don't think so (although some dates are a little off, I think these are most likely transcription errors). Why might a child be baptised twice?

Here are the dates by name of person. BT for Bishop's Transcript, CR for Church Register. If a separate birth date was listed I've indicated it as "b". I've indicated where two children are entered in the register on the same date.

Elizabeth
BT 8 May 1801
CR 29 April 1803 b 7 March 1801 (same entry as Joseph)

Joseph
BT 17 April 1803 (under April the dates run between 6 and 29, followed by a 17 - this one - and a 26)
BT 16 November 1804 b 17 March 1803 (same entry as John, in a section marked Public Baptisms)
CR 29 April 1803 (same entry as Elizabeth, no birth date for Joseph)
CR 16 November 1804 b 17 March 1803 (same entry as John)

John
BT 16 November 1804 b 18 October 1804 (same entry as Joseph)
CR 16 November 1804 b 18 October 1804 (same entry as Joseph)

So can anyone explain more about the Bishop's Transcripts? And also why a child might be baptised twice? (Unless you think I'm wrong about there being only one Joseph...?)

Thanks in advance!

Nikki