Baptism Gap

[Cornish Maid]

Hi, I think I have found my grt x 5 grandfather's parents, but I am not 100% sure...

I have a William Row on the 1841 census for St Ives, Cornwall, as being aged 55. This would make his birth date circa 1786. As ages were rounded down to the next 5 years, this would make his birth date between 1782 and 1786. So far so good. So I looked at the baptisms for St Ives and there were only these William Rows baptised as follows: 3 November 1745; 6 June 1791; and 1 January 1738. I found the one baptised in 1738 died the same year, so that rules him out. The first one in 1745 would be too early, so that leaves the William Row baptised on 6 June 1791, to Anthony and Margaret.

However, this would make him between 5 and 9 years of age when he was baptised. The rest of Anthony and Margarets' children were baptised between 1770 and 1777.

So... (and sorry if this is a bit drawn out), would a child be baptised at an older age, especially in times when there was a high mortality rate for children? And, hypothetically, if my William was born in 1782, that is still quite a gap between him and the preceding baptism.

And... looking at the naming patterns of the time, my William Row didn't call any of his children after his father or his mother or any of his siblings... So, have I got the right William Row?

I hope the above makes sense, and I would be extremely grateful for anyone's thoughts on this, as my brain is starting to hurt

Many thanks for your time
Bex

 

[jon attwood]

Its not at all unusual for there to be a gap between birth and baptism, in fact a lot of people werent baptised at all. Baptisms had to be paid for so often would be put on hold until the family could afford them, in some cases a family who had a windfall would get the whole family done at once. It all depends on how rich and devout the family in question were. Catholic families tended to get a baptism as soon as possible (original sin and all that) in case of infant mortality, but the protestant church put much less pressure on families to baptise every child at the earliest possible opportunity.

there are a few other factors that may be significant in this case, the 55 year old william row in st ives might not have been born there, have you searched the records of nearby parishes? if the census showed his occupation as being related to mining or farming it is quite likely that he would have moved around to follow the work. another thing to check is the other people in the household, he could have been living with (for instance) a daughter who had married and therefore taken on a different surname.
searching local graveyards might prove fruitful, as gravestones sometimes show the actual birthdate, when the only official records for the time would show a baptism date instead.
jon

 

[p.risboy]

My Gt.Grandfather and 2 of his siblings, were baptised all together even though they were born 6 yrs apart. And his eldest sister was not until she was 13yrs old. Another wasn't baptised at all, and the youngest was baptised 1 month after birth.

But my Grandfather had all 11 children baptised within weeks of being born.

Must have been down to economics, or fear of damnation.

Steve.

 

[pejay]

Hi Steve, I understand this was fairly common to have a few baptised all at the same time, something to do with cost, it can sometimes be confusing if there are only christening and not birth dates as like you say they can be years apart!

 

[benny1982]

Hi

In some cases I have had children baptised after their younger siblings.

My great grandmother was born in September 1889. Then the twins Frederick and Ada followed in April 1892 and they were both baptised in May 1892.

The next child was born in February 1894 and baptised in March, along with my great grandmother who was 4 and a half at that time.

Ben

 

[AthenaLou]

hi
i was told that in some cases baptisms didnt actually take place until a person was due to get married.....this was confirmed by one of my genealogy mags......one person i read about wasn't baptised until he was 28.......and the baptism took place 3 hours before his marriage......many people were baptised at the instance of the spouses family and if they refused then the family's blessing wasn't given.......so either the marriage didnt take place or if it did, then people would be 'cut off' by their families