And the risk it poses
Any time a genealogist encounters a set of church records, it’s enough to bring a smile to our faces.
Even a set that doesn’t include any of our own family members.
They’re a treat because they often record things that don’t get recorded by the secular authorities of the time and place — births, for example, long before birth recordation was standard, or burials — and because they often include more information than their secular counterparts.
So The Legal Genealogist had a broad smile last night, poking through the records of the Centre Monthly Meeting — the Quaker records of central Pennsylvania, where I’ll be speaking on May 19 at the Family History Conference of the Centre County Genealogical Society.1
Seriously, how can you not smile to make the acquaintance of the Kirk family of Centre County with their children born in the early years of the 19th century, neatly recorded on a page labeled Births 1814?
“A Book to Record Births and Buriels In. for Center Monthly meeing (sic) State Pennsylvania,” p.3, lines 1-9; digital images, “Pennsylvania, Centre, Centre Monthly Meeting, Births and Burials 1798-1925,” Ancestry.com.
The children of John and Lydia Kirk:
• Hannah, born May 6, 1804
• Joseph, born January 14, 1806
• Elizabeth, born February 27, 1808
• William, born January 3, 1810
• Thomas, born September 16, 1811
• Lydia, born August 3, 1813
• John Jr., born November 3, 1816
• Maryann, born September 27, 1817
• Sarah F., born November 15, 18192
Or the Underwoods, who lived in Bald Eagle, some years later?
“A Book to Record Births and Buriels In. for Center Monthly meeing (sic) State Pennsylvania,” p.8, lines 9-14; digital images, “Pennsylvania, Centre, Centre Monthly Meeting, Births and Burials 1798-1925,” Ancestry.com.
The children of Reuben L. and Emeline G. Underwood:
• William A., born April 11, 1870
• Ida J., born January 5, 1869
• Miles W., born June 7, 1871
• Eli G., born June 7, 1873
• Eva T., born May 25, 1875
• Jesse H., born January 24, 18773
Great information, neatly and conveniently packaged by family, with the names of all the children, their birth dates and their parents.
Except for one thing.
And you’ve already spotted it, haven’t you?
It’s the very fact that it is neatly and conveniently packaged by family, with the names of all the children, their birth dates and their parents.
Because record-keepers who are recording events as they occur don’t — and in this case couldn’t — record births in this kind of a neat, convenient, packaged-by-family way.
The way these entries appear, with all the children together by family, with the fact that there’s often not even a line between families, tells us these entries weren’t written when the children were born.
That couldn’t have happened with the Underwoods — with an 1870 birth recorded first and an 1869 birth recorded second.
No matter who kept this record or how it was kept or how the entries were recorded — no matter how carefully this information was entered — this is not a contemporaneous record of these births.
It’s second-hand somehow — either entered all at once sometime down the road, or re-recorded from some other earlier record.
Which means there was a risk that error might have crept in somewhere.
It’s still great information, neatly and conveniently packaged by family.
But the very fact that it’s in that form means we need to stop and think and verify — and make sure that that risk of possible error didn’t materialize in the family we’re researching.
SOURCES
- Yes, they can handle some walk-ins, it’s at the Foxdale Village Auditorium in State College, and registration starts at 8:30 a.m. ↩
- “A Book to Record Births and Buriels In. for Center Monthly meeing (sic) State Pennsylvania,” p.3, lines 1-9; digital images, “Pennsylvania, Centre, Centre Monthly Meeting, Births and Burials 1798-1925,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2018). ↩
- “A Book to Record Births and Buriels In. for Center Monthly meeing (sic) State Pennsylvania,” p.8, lines 9-14; digital images, “Pennsylvania, Centre, Centre Monthly Meeting, Births and Burials 1798-1925,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2018). ↩
I love the PA Quaker records. One in my family from the Abington Meeting Minutes (1629-1812!) with kids birthdates from 1698-1715. Priceless! Several generations later, my ancestors were drummed out of Meeting, again a Quaker record on when and why.
People tend to forget that the original record would have other births interspersed, unless, of course, they were the only family with births during that year.
And you wouldn’t get an 1870 birth recorded before an 1869 birth anyway!
I have had no experience of Quaker Records but as far as I’m aware in German family Books, the couple gets their own page on marriage then each child is added at baptism. Of course different handwriting and ink would give that away as well. Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong about the family Books. Now if there were just more of them online 🙂
The family records were one page per family, but these birth registers are different. There are several families per page and not always even a hand-drawn line between them much less blank entry lines.
… I think in more cases than is commonly realized (or, at least, more times than I realized for a long time! 😉 ) that what are called “original church records” are really recopied entries that have been prettied up – with exactly the risks of error that you note, Judy!
Lots of records get “prettied up” — even census records. And we don’t think of that as often as we should.
These are records of births, not baptisms, a subtle difference that is often overlooked. A whole family could be baptised on the same day even though they were born years apart.
Absolutely — and that was a lot more common than we think, especially in cases of families converting to a different church.