Genealogy Chat

Wikipedia says: The word infant derives from the Latin word in-fans, meaning 'unable to speak'. perhaps the Victorians were warning the children to be 'seen, but not heard' :-) I looked on Google and there are hundreds of schools that are still called Infant Schools.

Googled definition of infant and there are two: a) small child too young to walk/youngest category for child/baby aged 0-12months and b) anyone under the legal age of majority neither of which really covers Infants as in school! nell

Interesting about the word 'infant' - remember when the first school you went to was 'Infant School' and yet you were almost 5 years old. The one I went to was Victorian and had the words inscribed over the entrance.

Whose bed?

Whose bed?

Thanks Phoenix I'm looking at one specific parish over about 120 years, and about 5 different vicars from what I can tell. Some are better than others, and one in particular was very good. I didn't expect this to be easy, but its certainly fascinating. One of the later vicars was fond of giving cause of death if it was anything at all unusual - so I've got a woman killed by a bull, a man who fell off his horse, a few drowned in the river, others killed in mining accidents. So why was 'Joe Bloggs found dead in bed' worth a mention I wonder?

Thanks for that caveat, Phoenix. I must say, I'd been thinking that it would mean <1, but at least I haven't got far into that arena on that basis! Christine

NB The other untrustworthy term is Infant. While this almost always means a baby, it can be used for children under five, or even in the sense of under age.

Hi Vicky. 'Fraid the answer, basically, is no. There is no such thing as convention in registers. You might get helpful statements like senior, junior, of town, of heath, infant etc. But if it says: John Smith buried, you cannot assume that John Smith was an adult. Conversely, if it says John Smith, son of William Smith buried, you cannot assume that John Smith is a child, although he is probably unmarried. Even if the vicar is generally excellent at providing details, you have no guarantee that he actually performed every single ceremony. It is evident from some registers that all the entries were written up from slips of paper. It might be from the curate's notes and he wasn't as conscientious. I've seen one register where the vicar always went the extra mile and provided additional detail. This was actually so that each entry covered an exact line. In the entry above you got age or parents' names for a burial. On the one I was interested in, you got the parish he was from, so no room for additional detail! Other records can sometimes help you disentangle deaths: wills, manorial records, monumental inscriptions, land tax, etc but if there IS nothing else, then you may not ever be able to sort them out.

I have found that 'generally' the children are recorded in the way that you say but married / widowed women's records are not always so good at naming her spouse. Very much depends on the vicar. Well worth a trawl for the interesting snippets revealed in PRs though. I recently viewed some for a Hampshire village c. 1809 and the vicar had recorded many of the causes of death.... Not sure about his medical expertise though. One chap was said to have died from...'drinking cold water when he was hot'.

Can I ask the opinions of those of you who are dab hands at trawling parish registers. I’m trying to work out the possibilities for another generation or two, by “killing off” some of the baptisms. At the moment I’m looking at 18th century, and age at death is not generally given. Is it reasonable to follow these conventions - If the burial is that of a child, it would be recorded as “son [or dau] of…” If the burial is a married woman, it would be recorded as “wife [or widow] of …” If otherwise adult, just the name is given. I know there are always exceptions, but if these conventions were ** usually ** followed, it will help.

Help required with sorting out burials - see below