General Chat

I've found reference to one of my ancestors on Familysearch.org, but it appears that she was christened twice. Both records give the same date and parents, but churches several miles apart.

Can anyone tell me if this practice was common, or if they know of any reason why this could have occured?

Thanks

I think to benefit from poor relief in a certain parish you had to be baptised in the local church, to prove you were a local resident.

or

Maybe it was to appease both familys by having her christaned in their local church, likely to happen if the parents orginated from different faiths.

or

Depending on how big the gap is (over a year) maybe the first child passed away so the following child was given their name, I've seen this quiet a bit in my family tree.

I've a set of ancestors who were married at two different churches.

Hi thanks for the responses.

Both christenings were on exactly the same date, for the same name, so don't think it was due to a death. From what I've found so far both churches were CofE.

I didn't think it was permisable in the church to be christened more than once tho'

Were they extracted records or submitted?

Extracted are taken from the registers and submitted are taken from people's info so not so reliable.

Oh - google both churches. A lot of churches have websites now and a lot of them have historical bits. Maybe there was some link between the churches which is why she shows on both?

Jill

You can be christaned as many times as you want, no one checks the records, but you do have to be prepared to pay the required fee.

Another explaination is coinceidence, if the names are common enough could it be a family that happens to share the same names?

or

I don't know if this is correct, but if the record was copied and forwarded to the local central church someon my have transcribed the record as if the child had been baptised at the central church rather than another church in the dicoises, I could be wrong but that would make sense, or the records are now kept at the 'other' church and one person realised they weren't that churches records while another assumed they were.

I know you have to be wary with familysearch.org as their records include properly transcribed records as well as input from those utalising the site. It can be a useful tool but you have to remember to distingusih between the two types of data they hold.