Genealogy Chat

Has anyone else had this problem? The family I am tracking had both sons and daughters acording to census info, however on IGI only the girls were christened?

Hi, Some volunteers transcribe one sex at a time - if you check the actual Parish records it's likely the boys will be there. Gwynne

Gwynne Thats interesting. All the parish records I've seen at the RO have been mixed - I'll have to take a look next time I go Thanks for the reply Elly

You don't say when this is, so I may be completely off-beam here - but the information may help someone else. Pre 1850s, (difficult to be exact, depended where and when) boys were often baptised in the Mother Church.(Or, at least, their baptisms were reported to the Mother Church) This was so that the Church would have a list of 1. Possible Army recruits, should they be needed - many areas operated under the old feudal system for centuries after it was abolished, and tenants of the Landed Gentry owed fealty to their Lord - which of course included going to fight, if he told them to. 2. Men who would potentially pay tithes to the Church, and who would have all their goods seized, should they be stupid enough to die without making a Will. This particularly applies in areas such as Lancashire and Cornwall, but possibly other areas - I don't know. As females were of no significance in either of the above situations, they could be baptised any old where, probably the Chapel or Church used by the family. If the family lived on a tied Estate, the Lord would almost certainly have his own private chapel, where the sons of his workers would be baptised. Girls had to go to the regular church. Hope this will help someone - I believe this practice didnt die out till the early 1900s. Olde Crone

Blimey Olde Crone!! And I thought this thread was going to ask why nearly everyone on these baords seems to be female??? lol Merry

Ah, well, Merry, there you go - you have learned something new today - expecting trash and finding treasure!!!!Ha ha, must buy a new hat, this one's getting rather tight.... Oooh, forgot to say - these baptisms of males only can often be correlated with old Muster Rolls.... Olde Crone

Yes, I have noticed some batches on the IGI of only girls or only boys, and I must say it seems a funny way of making up a batch because you would have to go through every entry picking out 'son of' or 'daughter of' and then only transcribin half of them, then do the same all over again for the other sex! And it means the transcriber is almost bound to leave some out by mistake. Why don't they just do the first 1,000 then the next 1,000 or whatever? Kate.

I know for a fact that the IGI has only girls on a parish register which when I checked the original also had boys. So it is down to the person who extracted the info. nell