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SpillarCarolAnne1

Hello,

Re :UK, England, Lancashire—Nonconformist Church Records, 1647–1996 [Part B][MSL6-2D7]

I am indexing Lancashire Non Conformist Records and am trying to reconcile the type of Record. The only ones offered are Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths. I identified the records for a second opinion regarding type on Find My Past. These are not Baptism Records as Baptists do not baptise children until they are abt 12, they make them children of Record and give them a blessing . The Record gives two dates born and Registered and sometimes these dates are several years apart, the records are too valuable not to index, but misleading if they are indexed as Baptisms.(Find My Past only quotes the birth date.) I have encountered other misleading information in the past when Banns for Marriage were indexed as Marriages which sometimes never took place. Is it possible for additional categories to be suggested so that we can index these records correctly.

I can envisage conflicting information being entered on our Family Tree and have encountered many email discussions in the past when I discovered a Marriage which did not take place within one of my families despite the calling of Banns. The record had been indexed as Marriages and claimed as such, but when the image was discovered it clearly said Banns, and as one of the parties involved was still married (albeit separated) there was obviously and objection. This cleared up why certain children were named differently and gave the reason why, They were then regathered as a complete family.

By further investigation regarding place names I have identified the County as York not Lancashire and we were informed on the instructions that the records contained mixed Counties so this is not a problem.

I am sorry if I sound complaining but I am unsure how to proceed with this batch.

Kind regards

Carol

Ontymay

Hi Carol,

I am reviewing this project and you raise a good point

This is my take on this instruction

• When indexing baptism records, if a date was recorded but not identified, index it as the baptism date. If 2 dates were recorded and separated by a slash, index the first date as the birth date and the second date as the baptism date.

bold italics are my emphasis

In the batch you shared I would index the birth dates and mark the baptism date fields as blank

the birth date is identified as such - no problem

But what to do with the registration date? - can you use it as the baptism date?

I would say no because it is identified. It is the date the birth was registered

I consider that there is no baptism date on the image, and no date that is not identified

What do you think?

Susan Ann Mullen

Mark the type as baptisms but mark the baptism date fields blank. There are fields for the birth date so that information will show and not be inaccurate.

Thank you for wanting to do these correctly!

SpillarCarolAnne1

Thank You for your comments and I agree I do not want to identify this as a baptism record even though the title of the record is Lancashire Baptisms instead of York Births. As a Consultant and using opportunities to teach indexing I pre-empted any questions I may receive regarding this. It is such a shame that the type field does not include the multiple title baptism/birth etc the way the Northumberland records do, but I guess we must work with what we have and perhaps feedback when possible suggestions for changes. Particularly the Marriage/Banns conundrum. I will adjust these records accordingly should I come across this when I review

I appreciate your feedback once again Thank You for taking the time to comment

Kind regards