Genealogy Chat

Do people ever get christened twice?

Giles I am sure I've read threads where people say they have found the same person christened twice. As babies were often born a year or less apart, its sometimes supposed that an older baby is baptised, dies, younger baby is born, named after older baby and baptised and those baptisms are assumed to be for the same baby. But I have 2 instances in my tree where a baby has been privately baptised at home - I assume hastily because they weren't expected to live - and then baptised in church at a later date. nell

In my case, the younger person who was christened is on the Census 20 years later, and so it seems the same person was Christened a 2nd time (a few years after the first) with 2 other siblings on the same day!?

If a baby was baptised at home because they weren't expected to live and they survived, they would later be 'Received into the Church'. If the minister or person doing the register did it properly then against the date or in the margin would be 'RIC'. Obviously this only shows on the original register, transcripts often don't have this. This is still practiced today where an emergency baptism takes place at home or in hospital or in an afternoon service, the infant is later 'Welcomed Into the Church'. Having said all that, my husbands gr grandfather appears to have been baptised twice as does one of his sisters. Also I have one on my grandmothers side who in Scotland was baptised at one church, then the following month has her name again in another church but in a blotter register, still trying to work that one out. Josie

In some Norfolk parishes, it was standard practice in the late 1700s to note whether the child had been privately or publicly baptised. In the very best, the birth date, private baptism and public baptism are all noted. Some vicars did not record private baptisms and others, when they did wholesale family baptisms, seem not too concerned that one of the children may already have been baptised.

Hi there, I have a couple, one was a protestant and the other was a catholic, who married in 1896 in a catholic church. All their children were baptised in both churches. Mary

Hello Giles, yes, people could be baptized twice. I am living proof, Once in hospital, at 2 hours old & the 2nd one when I was a couple of months old, baptized in our local church! Linda x

I have 2 examples of people being baptised twice: - my gggm was baptised on the same day as her mother was buried (presumably the mother had died in childbirth). Then, 3 weeks later, she was baptised again, in the same church by the same vicar. The two entries are only 3 lines apart in the register. Presumably the first baptism was a rushed affair, maybe it was doubtful that the child would survive. Then, after she evidently survived OK (luckily for me or I wouldn't be here!), she was re-baptised ''properly''. - second example was a large family who moved from Southampton to London. Five of the children were baptised in London on the same day, some of them when they were several years old. Later I found that the eldest one had also been baptised in Southampton as a baby. Maybe the vicar on the second occasion was offering a bulk discount, or maybe the parents simply forgot that she'd already been done!! Richard

Mary from Spain I was christened twice, because of trouble in the family my mother was Catholic my father C of E , my mum apparently had made arrangements with her priest and had me baptised on the way home from the hospital without any of my fathers side of the family knowing, then a few months later I was christened again as C of E

Theoretically it is a heresy to be baptised twice, so (if there are doubts) the usual procedure is to have a second ceremony with the wording adjusted to reflect the 'in case' approach. Some denominations have not always recognised other denominations' baptisms as valid. I believe it is still true that Baptist churches regard anything less than full immersion as invalid. According to the IGI some ancestor-siblings of mine were baptised twice: once as young babes and then together a couple of years later. No obvious reason (yet). Christine