Baptisms

[grumpy]

Had any one any idea why a parent who lived in Chardstock (Dorset in those days) would have his son baptised in Thorncombe? I know that these two localities are only

about 8km (5 miles) away from each other but Chardstock had a perfectly good church (St Andrews) where the ceremony could have been conducted.

The only two guesses that I can come up with is:

1. The fathers wife may have come from Thorncombe, unfortunately I haven't been able to identify her yet.

2. I am fairly sure that the whole family was probably in the process of moving from Chardstock to Thorncombe around this time.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

It could have been the church where the parents married, grandparents' home parish, parents' home parish was "between vicars."
in rural areas, some people lived on farms outside a village settlement. Sometimes you only had to move to the next farm to find yourself also in the next parish.
You don't give a date, but during the Victorian era many churches went through complex restoration programmes, lasting for a couple of years. During this time span the parishoners would probably have had to go elsewhere.
All sorts of possibilities.

Jay

[grumpy]

Jay,
The year was 1745. I am aware that some parishioners who lived between Thorncombe

And Broadwindsor went to a church further away, but Chardstock was further away still.

A puzzling question and one where there is probably no answer.

[ozgirl]

As most of OH's Dorset lot seem to delight in having one of their children baptised in a completely different place to the rest (and sometimes under a different name!), I'm sure it was done just to confuse us poor descendants trying to trace them :D

[Olde Crone Holden]

In 1745 the main reason would be to gain settlement rights, I would have thought. Maybe the child was actually born there, rather than at home?

Quite a few of my relatives made elaborate journeys to baptise etc in far away churches because they didn't like the vicar in their own parish!

OC

[clematised]

My paternal GF always insisted on documents he was born Holyhead yet he was baptised in Llangwyfan where the family had all been born including his father, it took quite a while to find this out.

Edna

[grumpy]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. The reasoning behind all this was that most of my ancestors came from Thorncombe, but the original family came from Chardstock. Until now I

have not been able to get a connection between the two areas and this baptism has possibly given me a small breakthrough. Hope so anyway.

[Sylvia C]

I discovered that my gt gt grandparents were married in 1835 in St Mary's, Prestwich, about 7 miles away from where they lived in Oldham, even though Oldham had a Parish Church.

I've discovered that St Mary's Prestwich was the original Parish Church for Prestwich-cum-Oldham ............. and the area covered by that parish was about 15 miles long and about 4 miles wide, and included several hamlets and villages.

Even though Oldham's church had been built several years before that marriage ............... many people would walk to Prestwich for marriages and baptisms ................... they thought it was more important to have the services in THE Parish Church

Could something similar apply for you???


One result of the distance that the Oldham folks walked is that many of them have "professional witnesses" at their weddings ................ because family and friends often could not get time off work to attend.



As a sideline ................ the church at Prestwich is the one that has been used in Coronation Street for several "Street Weddings" :D

[Janet]

Chardstock is certainly a border village with Dorset/Devon and does need further investigation. Similarly Thorncombe borders with Devon, Somerset and Dorset. You really need to do a good research of this area to find out what is going on at this time in this area. It is a rural area and quite probably having a high number of agricultural workers so people would be looking for work on the various farms/maybe manor houses belonging to landowners. Most ag labs tried to find work within a 10 mile radius and often but not always lived in tied cottages so there could be the aspect of settlement rights as OC has pointed out. Do you know what occupations you are looking at?

I certanly have a similar family history in the 1600's and 1700's in Northamptonshire where my ancestors have settled in two villages, but often hop off to another village 10 miles away to live for a couple of years, get married, have one or two children baptised there, to return to the main village to have rest of children baptised. I have found deaths in the village but burial in another village, often where the parents have been buried. The interesting point being that mine also border other counties from Northamtonshire ie Huntingdonshire/Bedfordshire/Rutland and so I am constantly having to hop over borders to look for relevant marriages/baptisms and burials. My ancestors are found working as mole catchers/bailiffs/ag labs/grooms/gamekeepers/manservants and many other occupations for the local landowners all over Northants and they change villages as the landowners want them working on their land in aother village.

I can only say it does make life interesting! But I did find it all became clearer as I did a history of the villages and realised what was happening, but of course it was diffucult enough doing that worlk living in the UK and not so easy doing it from OZ.

I suggest googling these villages to start with to find out where the various farms/landowning property was in your villages of interest and Genuki Dorset may help even more. There is a very good Dorset Family History Society and a google of that may also help you. As a matter oif interest how did your ancestors get to Australia? I presume you know about the Tolpuddle Martyrs of Dorset as many of those were transported?

Genuki Chardstock

http://www.uk-genealogy.org.uk/genuki/DOR/Chardstock/index.html

There are some Chardstock records of Baptisms/Marriages and Burials on line at below website

http://chardstockwebmuseum.org/registers.html

Genuki Thorncombe

http://www.uk-genealogy.org.uk/genuki/DOR/Thorncombe/index.html

A quick read shows landowning property at Thorncombe.

Dorset FHS Registers to include Chardstock are also obtainable through FMP which you should be able to access in Canberra through a library but can purchase through the Dorset FHS if necessary. Botth Devon and Dorset appear to have the records in their respective County Record Offices.

http://www.dorsetfhs.org.uk/research/parish_registers.htm

Janet

[grumpy]

Janet,
thanks for all that info. I have had contact and a mound of information from the Chardstock record group which seems to have collated just about everything one

could find on the area. My ancestors were landowners in the area and up to the mid 1700's were recorded with the suffix "Gent" indicating that they held acreage of

a certain size. Their ancestral home is still standing I believe. However I am of the opinion that in the mid 1700's for some reason or another they moved from the Chardstock

area to Thorncombe, b ased on the name generally dying out around Chardstock and becoming more prevalent in Thorncombe. In my immediate family the last one to live

there was my g/gfather who eventually shifted to Jersey CI and started a family there. However in his final years he moved back to Thorncombe and died there.

Original records of the areas used to be held in Dorchester (I have had many a trip to there) long before the advent of the internet and the availability of records via computer.

[Janet]

David,

One other thought is that Dorset was a county growing much flax for the rope industry required for the sailing ships/boats. During the 1700's there was I understand a subsidy given to those landowners growing the flax but this subsidy was taken away sometime in the 1700's. Is it possible any of yours might have been affected by this?

Also Marriage Licences/Allegations/Bonds will no doubt be found within your family as these were often to be found within landowning class and any of these might throw up some interesting information as they often tell you where the bride and groom are coming from. It was finding these for my own ancestors that led me from one village to the next. These are not found online but only through the relevant CRO which in your case might be either Devon or Dorset.


There must be something in the air in Dorset as my OH's ancestors from there also ended up living in Jersey, having a family before returning to his original home!

Janet

[grumpy]

Janet,
Interesting, and thankyou for that, will chase those suggestions up.

My GG/gfather was coachman to the rector of Thorncombe, who was a Jersey man, and when the parson went back to Jersey the coachman went with him. In his last

years he must have retired and finally returned to Thorncombe where he died.