Vital records maintained for the Religious Society of Friends were often recorded several times. To find a record for the same individual in two different meetings was not unusual. In part, this arose because each meeting with which an individual was associated liked to have the complete story. An immigrant arriving from England with children might have a complete record of the family in an American meeting. An individual might have his birth recorded in his parent's family and in his own family. Also, as an individual moved from one meeting to another here in the colonies, he was apt to have records in both meetings.
Other reasons for the duplication include the "setting off" of a meeting from another meeting. One meeting spawns a meeting at another location and some of the members transfer to the new meeting. Each of the meetings wants its own record. Typically, the new records were made, not by copying from the original records, but from the recollection of the member. The members were not always as cooperative or as accurate as might be desired. Sometimes the second set of data may include information not recorded in the original set of data. A family might have more children at the second location and the records at the first location may not have this. This is deceptive because the first location records look complete and purport to be family sheets.
As an example of added information in the second record, one report tells that Thomas Martin was born in Ireland on 21 10th month 1714, and his wife Sarah, born in the 2nd month 1715, was the daughter of Cadwalader and Eleanor Jones. This information was missing from the first record.
While two records for the same event may provide additional information, the converse is true. The two records may provide conflicting information. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to the Friends; it happens in all record keeping. This merely emphasizes that all records should be viewed with a healthy skepticism. Confirmation is always desirable.
Quakers might leave the Society of Friends because they were "disowned" by the meeting, or because they elected to join a more traditional church. Sarah Taylor was disowned by her meeting on 4 5th month 1763 for keeping company with men in a loose and disorderly manner at unreasonable hours of the night and for playing cards. Children of questionable birth are not found in Friends' records. Should the parents be known, they are apt to be disowned. The phrase that might be used in these cases is "gave way to temptation". In the cases of natural birth, the records for the child can perhaps be found in other churches.
The comments of the past several notes have largely been taken from John Humphrey's book, " Understanding and Using Baptismal Records ". I will continue with more comments from John on evaluating the evidence.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.