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Archiver > Dutch-Colonies > 2006-03 > 1142467309


From: "" <>
Subject: Re: [D-Col] Birth vs. Baptism places
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:01:49 GMT


Without having read everything in this thread, I have another thought. My gg grandfather documents in his Bible, which I have, that he was b. in Canajoharie, Montgomery Co. His baptismal record was found elsewhere (I'm at the library and I don't remember where now). Several of his siblings were baptized in places other than Schenectady, where both parents' families had lived, were married and baptized for generations. Several people on this list told me privately that one probable reason for this was not that the family moved or traveled. It was often that the minister "itinerated." He would ride (or use the rivers) to various churches or homes. There he would marry or baptize. But when he got home, he would put the records in his OWN record book. Kelly's transcription had no way of sorting out who lived there from who was recorded there because the minister was appointed there. So one of my gg grandfather's siblings is recorded as baptized in what is now Fonda, and !
another in Rotterdam. But it is probable that they were born in Schenectady, because all the other children except my gg grandfather were. Just another complication to consider.
Doris Waggoner
Seattle

-- "Helen Graves" <> wrote:
I agree with everything that has been posted on the list regarding reasons why the baptism place could differ from the birth place.

Lately I have been reviewing what I have entered in the past into my genealogy program on my early Dutch families in New York, noting the church, the location of the church where the baptism occurred, and the baptism date. I made a list of the churches and am now adding to that list the date when the church began and also the time period covered in extant records.

I am doing this because... I have found that in some families, the children were baptized in different churches. Or, there is a child for whom I can find no baptism record. While this can indicate that the family moved, it could also mean that for the earlier children in the family were baptized at the church that was closest to where they were born. For the children born later in the family, it is possible they were baptized at a newly established church that became even closer to where the family lived.

For the child or children in the family for whom I have found no baptism yet -- I look at maps to locate the churches where the other children were baptized to see if the map can reveal clues as to other churches to research.

I also have a theory as to why "later children" in the family were baptized in a church different from the others -- it could be the sponsors. I make note of sponsors and try to determine their relationships to the child and parents. For example, if either grandparent or both grandparents were sponsors of later born children (especially namesakes) , it is possible that the parents had the baby baptized in the church nearest to where the grandparents lived (i.e. baptized at the grandparents' church) -- especially if the grandparents were elderly at the time of the baptism. The baptism of a baby with a grandparent (or grandparents) as sponsors would be a family reunion of sorts and perhaps it would be easier for the family and baby to travel to the grandparents and their church, rather than the elderly grandparents having to travel to the baptism at a distant church. This might also account for a delay of some months between birth and baptism. Weather (and marauding Indians!
) could be a factor on when or when not to make the trip for a baptism.

Re: Traveling away from the home-church to have children baptized. When the Hudson River froze over in the wintertime, wasn't it a North-South expressway ? Wasn't it easier to travel by sleigh and sleds on the frozen river than trying to travel later in spring over muddy roads with horse and wagon? Just a thought...

Helen


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