Oh Susanna!

[wulliam]

I've got these two turning up in Norfolk on FreeREG:

St. Nicholas, East Dereham, Susanna Larner was born 20 Aug 1781 and baptised 7 Oct 1781 to parents Samuel Larner & Mary
St. Nicholas, East Dereham, Susanna Larner was born 2 Nov 1781 and baptised 9 Nov 1781 to parents Samuel Larner & Mary

What's going on??There was no time for the older Susanna to die, mother Mary to be expecting again and then re-use the name. For that matter, there was no time whether the older one died or not!

Do you have any wise thoughts on the matter?

[dopeyploppy]

Looks to be that they transcribed from the originals, which were in a poor state and took a guess at the dates. We had a problem with Staffordshire records the left margins with the dates on we either missing , crumples or so badly faded we could not read them.

[wulliam]

Many months later, thanks to Jayne for her thoughts (and apologies for not acknowledging them at the time - don't know what happened there).

I've now had a chance to look at the original image - they're both there...and actually on the same page!
I would put the image up, except there's no point as there's no doubting what the handwriting says.

Is it remotely possible that the same parents had the same daughter re-baptised within 5 weeks of the original baptism - and in the same church at that??

I'm seriously puzzled by this one!

[margaretmarch]

But why would they say a different date of birth??
Margaret

[kylejustin]

sure there's only one couple by that name?

[wulliam]

Thanks for your replies. As far as I'm able to tell there was only the one couple by that name - but maybe there's a parish somewhere nearby (or not!) which I haven't discovered a marriage in yet.

Will keep looking

[grumpy]

Whilst you could never prove it, my guess that the verger (or whoever wrote up the records) picked up the wrong bit of paper
to enter the details and inadvertently reentered the previous record. Then, either didn't want to deface the register by scratching the second entry
or just didn't notice it. For the correct birth/baptism I would go for the first one.

[kylejustin]

could one be the bishop's transcript and the other the actual parish register?

[Uncle John]

could one be the bishop's transcript and the other the actual parish register?

Wulliam said he saw both entries in the parish register.

[wulliam]

That I did - and both on the same page at that! Here they are: