From: me@yahoo.com   
      
   On 2024-01-10 11:25:04 +0000, Graeme Wall said:   
      
   > On 10/01/2024 08:56, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:   
   >> On 2024-01-06 17:32:00 +0000, Geoff said:   
   >>   
   >>> Graeme Wall wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> On 06/01/2024 17:17, Geoff wrote:   
   >>>>> Why would someone have a private baptism in 1714?   
   >>>>> I am researching the Hastings family in Horning in Norfolk and have   
   >>>>> not seen this in any other baptism records.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Sick infant?   
   >>>   
   >>> He went on to have 7 children!   
   >>   
   >> My grandmother was baptised in 1875 by a nurse in a maternity hospital   
   >> because she wasn't expected to live. She was later baptised again in   
   >> church. She died in 1965 at the age of 89, with three surviving   
   >> children (a fourth lost in a submarine during the War) and eight   
   >> grandchildren. You don't need to be a priest to carry out a baptism,   
   >> and I think baptism by nurses in hospital was quite common.   
   >>   
   >   
   > I had the misfortune to spend part of my secondary schooling at a   
   > Catholic school, run by Irish priests. At about the age of 15 we were   
   > taught the correct form of words for a baptism in case we came across   
   > an emergency situation. I hasten to add, I've never actually performed   
   > one.   
      
   Thinking of the 89 years that my grandmother lived after being thought   
   unlikely to survive, I looked up her father, who was an equally   
   impressive case of longevity. He served in the Indian Army, and fought   
   in the Indian Mutiny, eventually becoming its last known survivor. He   
   left the Army at the age of 29 on account of ill health, but he lived   
   another 69 years after that, dying at the age of 98. His unmarried   
   daughter, my great-aunt, was the last person to receive a pension from   
   the East India Company -- until she died in 1962, 87 years after the   
   company was dissolved. General Frank Kitson, who died a few days ago at   
   the age of 97, was his grandson. I was always told that longevity was   
   characteristic of that family, and it's apparently true.   
      
      
   --   
   Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36 years; mainly   
   in England until 1987.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)