Genealogy Chat

I know in recent times, a lot of people have decided not to Christen or Baptise their children. When did this first happen? I want to look for some baptisms between 1900 and 1940, but I'm not sure they'll be there, so I want to make sure before I go looking.

Dont think they have ...stopped Not so many people are baptised now, but early 1940's I'd guess the majority still were although there may have been blips in the war years

I think this is almost an impossible question to answer! When I was at junior school (a C of E one) in the early 1970's, everyone brought in their christening record for some ''event'' or other. I was the only person in my class who had not been Christened!! Now, though this was a church school it was also the only school in the area, so should have had a cross-section of the community! When I asked mum why? she reminded me that I was not Christened because her family were (lapsed) Quakers and Quakers do not ''christen'' their children. Merry

You are A little heathen then Merry -...ooohhhh.... Not sure i am going to talk to you any more!! lol jess x

Hi Tracy It has got to depend on the parents' denomination. By the 1940s, in the towns at least, there would have been all sorts of shades of religion. I have a friend who has no idea where she was baptised (and her godmother cannot remember) because all her siblings were baptised in different churches as her mother tried them all out!

I didn't know whether or not I was baptised, I was always sent to a Methodist Sunday School. so when I was in my early twenties and wanting to get confirmed C of E, I got baptised then. June xx

Tracy - up till 1837 most people got their children baptised fairly soon after their birth if only to get the baptism certificate which could be used as proof of their birth in a similar way to birth certificates nowadays. (But of course it would usually also be so that they entered into the church!) After the start of civil registration there was not such urgency to get children baptised, and often a couple would get all their children, or a batch of them, baptised at once, so the oldest might be several years old by the time he / she was baptised. Of course, some people never got their children baptised at all, especially if they weren't church-goers. And of course many people are still baptised today. So it is difficult to answer your question exactly! Kate.

I think that between the years you give (1900 to 1940) most people would have had their children baptised, because a lot of people would not let a new mother who hadn't been 'churched' into their home. I remember this with my own sister when she had her first child in 1960. Kath. x

Thank you all for your replies. Jess - I phrased my question poorly lol I know they haven't stopped, but they are not as common as they once were. I think they were all, or mostly, Anglican so I should be able to find records for them. I do have a few in my earlier family that weren't baptised in the conventional sense, but I still found records of their births in the church records. Brenda - I hope mine didn't do that, or I'll be searching for years lol Kate, I was thinking that I might not be able to find them after 1837, which is why I posed the question. Kath, thank you. Hopefully mine will be among those that felt they 'had' to. I'll go off on my hunt then :)

Sorry, Jess - Heathen???!! Yes, probably!! Am just taking a break during making an emergency fancydress costume for a party for my 6-year-old in two hours!! Have now got bald patches from tearing my hair out. He is going as a cowboy, but guns and holsters are non-PC these days - hence was able to buy guns, no problem, but not the holster!! Have corrupted an expensive leather belt and am now trying to work out best way to make holsters..... Any ideas anyone? I suppose I am not good at this because my Quaker genes are pacifist genes?? lol Merry (not so, at the mo....)