Why a private Baptism ??

[Guest]

just been updating my baptisms and noticed one child in a family has private by it , why would that be and does that mean it would be dearer as they were very poor
Thanks

[Vivienne]

Possibly a sickly child, not expected to live to get to the church.

[Guest]

ah that makes sense thanks Vivienne he did die a month later.

[Macbev]

I have several private baptisms in my tree...in most instances, the child died shortly afterwards. In one case, the child was baptised again a couple of years later.

[Guest]

I am very ignorant of this does it mean they were baptised by themselves ??? and would that have been expensive??

[Olde Crone Holden]

Anyone who has been baptised C of E can baptise another person in extremis, so anyone in the household could have baptised the child, but it would probably have been either the Vicar or the midwife/birth attendant.

OC

[Guest]

Thanks OC I just love the LMA stuff on Ancestry found so many children I knew nothing about .

[maggie_4_7]

Most of the private baptisms I have come across in mine and OH's tree it seems the child died very soon after, in two cases in OH's they were baptised twice in the space of a couple of years and yes they eventually died.

However, my great great great grandfather William Cook was privately baptised and lived until he was 76 years old! :smilee: So probably wasn't expected to live or had something a bit wrong with him perhaps at the time.

[Little Nell]

I have quite a few private baptisms and they were all either on the day of the child's birth or a day or so after, probably because the child wasn't expected to live.

On the other hand, I also have a raft of children baptised as job lots when they were well into childhood.

[maggie_4_7]

On the other hand, I also have a raft of children baptised as job lots when they were well into childhood.

Ditto.

My mothers 5 older sibling excluding the oldest sibling were all 'done' at the same time but that was only because my Nanny had just had another child and was being harrassed by the vicar of St Judes (lived across the road) to get them done the youngest of the five was 2 weeks old! The vicar apparently was always nagging at her she of course couldn't give a damn as in later years she admitted to being an atheist and only did it to stop the constant nagging. :Big Grin:

[Guest]

thanks Maggie and Nell very enlightening

[Guy]

I am very ignorant of this does it mean they were baptised by themselves ??? and would that have been expensive??

No baptisms are free.
Sometimes the authorities did make a charge to register the baptism but it has always been unlawful to charge for a baptism.
Cheers
Guy

[maggie_4_7]

Yeah sorry I missed the bit where you asked it would it be expensive.

There wasn't any charge as Guy has said otherwise most of our poor Ancestors wouldn't have been baptised if they had to pay.

They wouldn't have been able to bear yet another expense. It was done to conform to society's requirements within that community it was the done thing and to edge their bets on life and death and the worry if they didn't something terrible might happen!

As I said before my mother's 5 older siblings got baptised in Jan 1918 the youngest being 2 weeks old and the oldest of that little group being born in 1909. The oldest son was baptised pretty soon after he was born in 1907.

After 1918 another 5 siblings were born and as far as I can make out Nanny did not have them baptised those last five included my mother.

By then Nanny had found her voice and decided that enough was enough.

[Guest]

Thanks I did wonder how my poor family afforded to get the children baptised.

[Somerset Sal]

In one case, the child was baptised again a couple of years later.

It was the custom when a child died, for the parents to give the next child to be born of the same sex, the same name. One of my family-tree researcher relatives says that one Cornish branch of his family named four successive daughters Mary; the first three all died as babies, but the fourth survived to adulthood.

When you find that you've got one couple who seem to have 2, 3 or 4 children of the same name, it means that the earlier ones died and only the youngest of them survived for any length of time.

[Uncle John]

I still remember a "House of Tiny Tearaways" episode where a modern couple gave the same name to a new baby after a sibling had died. It caused them all sorts of emotional problems and is definitely not to be recommended.

[Guest]

I have a few of those but not many funny enough, I think it was a horrible custom.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I read somewhere that it was to do with old superstitions - if you named a new baby with the same name as a dead child who had been baptised, then the Devil would miss the new child when looking round for a baby to take!

Didn't work for my Green family, who had three Samuels before they got one who survived past infancy.

OC

[Guest]

such strange ideas glad Samuel escaped his clutches.

[Vivienne]

My Mum was named for her sister who died age 2yrs but they did change her middle name.

There are also quite a few others throughout the family.