Family Historian User Group

I am researching the baptisms of my 4x Gt-Grandmother, Meriah KING, and her siblings. Her parents, Caesar KING & Mary WRIGHT were married in Budbrook(e), Warwickshire, on 29 Oct 1792. Looking through the Warks. parish registers on Ancestry, I have found the baptisms of three children in Budbrooke parish, for which Ancestry cites Engl/2/1005 DRO 8/3 at the Warwickshire Record Office:

Hannah, dau. of Caesar & Mary KING, bpt. 01 Dec 1793
Meriah, dau. of Ceaser [sic] & Mary KING, bpt. 11 Nov 1798
Mary, dau. of Ceaser [sic] & Mary KING, bpt. 11 Mar 1804

I have also found three further children in the neighbouring parish of Claverdon. Ancestry cites Engl/2/1142 DR 252 at the Warwickshire Record Office for these three baptisms:

Elizabeth, dau. of Caesar & Mary KING, bpt. 19 Apr 1801
Anne, dau. of Casar [sic] & Mary KING, bpt. 25 Feb 1807
Ann, dau. of Cesar [sic] & Mary KING, bpt. 04 Feb 1810

Confusingly, however, these three baptisms are also recorded in another neighbouring parish, Norton Lindsey, which is about a mile down the road from Claverdon. Ancestry cites Engl/2/1042 DR 122 at the Warwickshire Record Office for these:

Elizabeth, dau. of Caesar & Mary KING, bpt. 19 Apr 1801
Anna [sic], dau. of Caesar & Mary KING, bpt. 25 Feb 1807
Ann, dau. of Cesar [sic] & Mary KING, bpt. 04 Feb 1810

All of the records have images attached; the documents for Claverdon and Norton Lindsey are definitely different, but the recorded information is the same. It seems utterly improbable that on three separate occasions there would be identically named children, with identically named parents (and a distinctive name at that, in the father's case) who were baptised on the very same day just a mile apart from each other. Surely it's beyond reasonable doubt that these are the same people? So that raises three questions:

1) Would you agree that the three records in Claverdon and the three records in Norton Lindsey must be referring to the same baptism events?
2) Has anyone come across these two parishes before and have any idea why the records of the one would be duplicated in the records of the other?
3) How would you record these baptisms? The children were - I'm sure - only baptised once, but where: Claverdon or Norton Lindsey?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

My first thought would be to investigate the system of parishes at that time -- Genuki points out that Norton Lindsey was a curacy annexed to Claverdon... So if they were baptised in Norton-Lindsey by the curate and notes made of that fact for later entry in the registers, he might have written them up twice in error....

Perhaps search the relevant registers for more duplicates to see if a pattern stands out.

I agree with Helen. It sounds like Norton Lindsey was initially a 'Chapel Church' of Claverdon and would have been where most of the local baptisms actually took place. When such churches were initially granted permission to maintain their own Registers the entries would also often be transcribed into the Registers of the 'mother Church'. Depending on local circumstances, you might also find that local Marriages and Burial records didn't commence until some time after Baptisms, e.g. if the Chapel didn't have authority to perform marriages and/or if there was no consecrated burial ground, or those events had to be performed by a clergyman from the mother Church.

I have seen some cases where two parishes were connected, either because one was annexed to the other or because one was temporarily without a clergyman and its services were performed by the minister from the other parish. The bap/marriage/burial records in the original two PRs were distinct but the Bishops Transcripts were all sent "as from" one parish. So the discrepancy was between the PR and the BT.

On FindMyPast it only holds the Norton Lindsey parish records (DR0122/1) and not the Claverdon ones.
The baptisms are recorded on pages 25, 27 & 29 respectively of the same records book.

On the images it allows earlier & later pages of the book to be reviewed.
Can you do the same on Ancestry for the Claverdon images and maybe nearer the front of the book it may say that they are copies from Norton Lindsey.

It always pays to have a look at the Record Office Catalogue. However, inevitably Ancestry and / or FindMyPast close up spaces or miss leading zeroes in their references resulting in much frustration if you try to use the document reference. And that's before you try to find the parish registers in the catalogue...

In the case of WRO, using the Place Code (NA502) from the table accessible at the side seems to cut down a lot. Eventually (and I have no idea how this relates to Ancestry's references), I found this:

00057 - PARISH OF ST MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS, CLAVERDON - 1373-1978 00057 - PARISH OF ST MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS, CLAVERDON - 1373-1978
1 - Incumbent
.1 - Registers
..1 - Composite and baptism registers
...
...10 - MS transcript of marriages 1765-1812 (part of DR0001/3, and DR0001/4), and of a marriage 4 June 1779 and of banns of marriage 1769-1800 (from slips of paper found in the registers); and of registers of baptisms and burials 1742-1812 and of marriages 1744-1753 (DR0122/1) and of marriages and banns of marriage 1754-1810 (DR0122/2) for the parish of Norton Lindsey - nd [late 19th cent]

So the Claverdon entries are actually a copy of the Norton Lindsey stuff done much later for no clear reason. In fact, there are clues - the copy is done on lined paper, with rounded corners, neither of which tend to figure in the parish registers of the 1800-ish era - so far as I've seen. The handwriting is also suspiciously consistent.

PS - Before looking, I would have concurred with previous guesses that this was a case of the chapel's entries being recorded in both the chapel's own books and the mother church's.
PPS - Given that the copy is a late copy for unknown purposes, I'd ignore it in FH apart from a note...
PPPS - ... unless, of course, you find something in the copy that's no longer in the original because the rats got to it!

I have examples like this from parishes in several different parts of England. Sometimes the clue is in the page heading. For example 'Baptisms in the chapel of ...' , the chapel being (at the time) a daughter church or chapel of ease for the main parish church. The baptism records then seem to have been copied into the parish church register as well. Over time the chapel may become a parish in its own right and a collection of record images make it appear that the baptisms took place in two different parishes.
Anne

That's veryuseful info, Adrian. Thank you. Thanks also for all the other responses.