Help Required Please

[lyall]

Hello

I have two questions/queries that I hope someone will be able to answer for me or point me in the direction of an answer.

1) On an English baptism record (from the year 1885) if there is a note that says ‘Received’ what does this mean?

2) Does anyone know if there is a rule or regulation that prevents my local Crematorium, who houses/cares for all the local Council run burial ground records, from allowing said burial records to be digitized by the county Archive Office? No one seems to know why they haven’t been digitised or any time line to have this done. The Crematorium says ask the Council, the Council says ask the Crematorium, the Archive Office won’t ask either of them as they say they want to know they are asking for access from the correct people/place first.

Thank you in advance for your help

[Mosaic]

'Rec'd' may be 'recorded' ie the data was copied into another administrative document
The digitisation of records depends on funds and on server availability. Most archives services are run by local councils, who have on the one hand a rather strict and old-fashioned view to accessing data, and on the other hand relatively limited server space - especially when the amount of space that archives could fill is taken into account.
Then there's the question of who would do the task, either scanning or transcribing, and who would check the inputted data. This is largely done by volunteers, where it happens. In Darwen for example, the cemetery records have been steadily transcribed and digitised by a local society.
Lastly, archival training has an odd view - archivists are often pleased that they've made catalogues of holdings available online, but fail to appreciate that this engenders frustration among end-users who want to access the actual material.
A small number of archivists argue that making documents available online harms their trade by stopping people from visiting archives in person.

So it sounds like your cemeteries dept hasn't had any help from any quarters to enable digitisation. You could always start a volunteer scheme to help them.

[knittynora]

Re Baptism record. Babies who are unwell or thought unlikely to live long may have a Private Baptism (PB) at home. If they do survive they will then be 'received into the church' at a later date. Not sure but think this would be when they were well enough to attend church for the first time.

[lyall]

Knittynora, I’ve come across quite a few private baptisms but have never come across one that has been baptised/received twice. My ancestor was first privately baptised in 1879 to a single mother. She was hale and hearty both as a baby and a child and always lived with her grandparents. In the same parish register 6 years later (1885) she appears to be baptised again, her Mother’s name is the same and she had the same unusual middle name as her father (Duncom).

As far as I can tell from census evidence and a non provable family story she always lived with her grandparents and her mother sort of vanished. The archivist from my local Archive Office who double checked the register for me said that next to the second baptism was the word ‘Received’, she wondered as Mosaic suggested that the information was copied into another register, but we have been unable to find it in any parish within a 15 mile radius, as both parents and both sets of grandparents were all born in the same parish it is unlikely that they would be further away, but who knows!

Thank you Mosaic I have drafted a letter to the council to see if it possible to get the registers transcribed/digitised. I have offered to help, I have also given them contact details to the Senior Archivist at the local Archive Office and sent them the link to the FreeReg site in case they would like their volunteers to help, now it’s just a case of wait and see.

[DJHawkes]

It may be a number of reasons, a baptism at a chapel of ease treanferred into the main register at the mother parish, a private baptism transferred into the parish register, or an adult baptism of someone converting to the anglican faith.

[DJHawkes]

the only thing that prevents this happening is money,

[DJHawkes]

sorry that was question 2