General Chat

These names and baptisms can be a real pain. I have an ancestor Thomas Harvey who died in 1930. He appears as a 6 year old in the 1871 census with parents John Harvey and Isabella (nee Game). That ties in with his age at death but I could never find a birth registration for him. Then I realised that his parents didn't marry till he was about 4 and that John Harvey was some years younger than Isabella and might not be Thomas' father so I checked under Isabella's maiden name of Game. No sign of a Thomas Game born at the right time and right area anywhere. To cut a long story short I discovered him almost by accident. He was born in a workhouse in Lambeth and was baptised with 5 other workhouse babies at about 10 days old by a Geo. Greig. A bit more research and I found out that the Revd George Greig was Chaplain to the Lambeth Workhouses and there were lots of babies baptised by him and added to the parish records of St Mary, Lambeth later. I suspect he also decided my ancestor would be called Walter. The name doesn't appear anywhere else in our family and he was known throughout his life and was buried as Thomas. I never have found a birth registration for him under any name so perhaps he didn't get registered.

Forenames/Christian names and baptism records can certainly cause a lot of confusion to the poor family historian.

That was interesting Gwyn.

I’ve known for years that anyone could baptise a baby in an emergency but assume that the entry in the parish register indicated a baptism by the clergy.

Although 'Christened', my 'Christening' was never formally followed up.

When I went to Saudi Arabia in 1973, I had to prove I wasn't a Jew - but had no Christening evidence to prove it!
I found a friendly vicar, explained the situation - and that I didn't want to be Christened formally, as I wasn't a Christian - and he wrote a letter for me.

My siblings were Christened because that was the 'done' thing to do.
Neither of my parents ever went to church - and dad became a Moslem in 1968.

Neither of my children, and none of my grandchildren are christened.

A quick Google brings up the following article.............

https://essexandsuffolksurnames.co.uk/lawshall-of-private-baptisms-and-misgotten-infants/

buried within it , it mentions that in an emergency any baptised person can baptise a baby.

The ones I was thinking about were in the 1800’s. Would the local woman who assisted at birthing take it upon themselves to baptise the baby I wonder.

Names, I have often seen records like that and sometimes there is a followup note that 'Mary Smith'... or whoever was received into the church, usually when the privately baptised child was taken into a church service at a later date and publically acknowledged as a member of the church.

I remember my mother telling me that the midwife baptised a neighbour's little girl. She later thrived and now lives in Canada. This was late 1940s.

I think any of these private baptisms by midwives 'counts' in the eyes of the church, so no need for the more usual form of Christening.

I found quite a few parish register entries stating the baby had beeen baptised at home. I always assumed the child was poorly and not expected to live - they did.

maggie ...................

I discovered that for a long long time, anyone could baptize a baby if it seemed that s/he would not survive. I once heard that the baby was supposed to take at least 2 breaths, but it is thought that quite a few people did it anyway so that the baby could be buried in sanctified ground.

The "midwife" was often the person who did it.

I don't know whether this is still "allowable" these days, as most hospitals now have a chaplain on duty, and, like an Army chaplain, s/he can perform blessings for other religions in extremity.

I have not had either of my children baptized/christened for the simple reason, no church will do this service unless you are a member of the said church. As I do not affiliate to any religion or church, my children are not baptized.

I believe that if they want to be baptized when they were old enough to understand what it meant, then that was up to them.

They both chose not to be baptized and neither are religious.

I just think it would be very hypocritical for someone to have their child baptized and never attend church afterwards.

I was born 6 weeks premature, and weighed 4lbs 8oz. A rather Catholic nurse decided I wouldn't live long, so, she took it upon herself to 'Christen' me before I died, so I could have a Christian burial!!
Mum (obviously) wasn't happy with this, or the name the nurse chose, and sent dad off to register me.
It seems that secretly, mum thought I wouldn't live long either - she named me after gran's sister, who died as a baby!!
Weirdly, of us 4 children, I'm the only one who wasn't officially Christened.

I wonder how often this situation may have arisen in the past, where a nurse took it upon themselves to do what they assumed was the 'good Christian' thing to do?

names ..................

it was "agreed" between us that I would choose a name or names if the child was a girl, OH would choose for a boy, and that we would not use family names. The crucial point was that neither of us would criticize the other's choice. That way we would have the name immediately.

I broke that last one when OH announced his choices, both of Welsh origin, but I had a vision of calling either of those names out loud in a Canadian neighbourhood.

But it became moot when we had a girl ........................ but then it turned out that I had unwittingly broken the "no family names".

OH phoned his father, and was immediately told that one of OH's great aunts had been called that, and the other name I'd chosen was the same as OH's maternal grandmother's (he'd never known her full name as she was always referred to by a nickname).

The intriguing thing about the first name was that I had read a book about 10 years previous where one of the characters had the name, and I loved it, determined I would use if I ever had a child.

But then I started doing family history, and discovered that the name had come down one line of OH's ancestors from before the mid-1600s at least!


Our child was not baptised until she was 4 years old, after a babysitter had taken her several times to her church, which was a small proselytizing Christian one. Daughter saw a baptism there and asked if she could be baptised.

That started OH going back to the Anglican church, and a baptism ceremony! The vicar even picked up this 4 year old and held her so that he could make the cross on her forehead as he would have a baby.

I've always understood that being christened was baptism into the christian faith and the name a person was baptised/christened with is their 'christian' name.

It is only right that the term 'forename/s' should be used. It is presumptuous to say 'christian' name when you just don't know what faith someone is. I'm sure the term 'forename/s' has been on official forms for some time and quite right too.

Anyway...... has Billybud been back? :-D

As we didn’t know what we were getting we hadn’t decided on any names beforehand.

I think the term "christian" name was what everyone used whether the child had been baptised or not. Everyone in the UK belonged to a "christian" religion, one that believed in God.

It is only recently that it has become "forbidden" to use that term because it has been realised that many people either no longer believe in the "christian" faith or belong to other religions.

My 12 year old grandson has never been "christianed" or baptized, yet people refer to his "christian" name.


I have many ancestors who were baptized in bunches, either because there was no vicar and they had to wait until one came on a visit, or because they couldn't afford to pay. Yet the unbaptized children were called by their "christian" names.


I also know of a few people who even in recent times had not decided on the name for the child by the time s/he was born, and it took some time for the decision to be made.

Shirley, I think quite often the opposite happened and the birth was registered before the child was christened. Although both my sons had names, neither was christened until some considerable time later, long after the births were registered.

My great-grandfather had two sisters, and all three were baptised together when the youngest was a baby, by which time g-g was ten.

That is an interesting question. Do you mean why call it a Christian name if it was baptised nameless.

It seems strange to baptise a nameless child. I wonder if those were done very quickly. The baby being poorly or they needed to catch the visiting priest. The same with registering an unnamed child - could it be that free time was so restricted the parents had to gallop off to register, or again, catch the visiting registrar.

So where does 'christian name' come from? :-S

It’s not unusual if a child is a newborn

Some people didn’t name the child till after it was christened

In England /wales you have six weeks to Reg the birth so often a child was christened before it’s birth was registered

Where are you looking for your Scottish family?

GR only has records for England and Wales, and we tend not to use it for research in any case.

For Scotland you need Scotlands People:

https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

You have to register;
it's free to search;
to see original records, depending on the date, you either buy credits and view the record online, or else have to buy a copy of the certificate.

There are also some Scottish records on Ancestry, FindMyPast, Family Search. . . .

Just had to have a look :-D

There are a number of Nots, some mistranscribed - 'Dot' for instance - somebody must have been nodding off....

Poor little Not Wanted James Colvill lived no longer than 6 months and is listed as such on original death reg, :-(

Best find was Not Butter - I can't believe it's.... :-D