In spite of the official position of each church toward who might be baptized, the churches in America were freer in their practices. Lutherans were baptizing people from other faiths and races not normally found in Lutheran Churches. One " Protestant " mother brought her son, by an Anabaptist father, to the Swedish Lutheran Church in Philadelphia in a "private" baptism. During the occupation of Philadelphia by the British forces, the Anglican church was under stress. During this time, the Lutherans baptized many English children. The Catholic church in Philadelphia baptized many children of "Protestant" parents. Most of the major churches baptized African-American slaves and free people, as well as Indians.
The Presbyterian and Reformed churches were not as open in their policies. A search of five thousand baptisms in the Presbyterian churches showed only thirty Germanic names, or mentions of African-American origins. These thirty were not evenly distributed; a few churches accounted for the thirty. Of the seven African-America baptisms, it appears they were for children of members. Even the baptisms of the German children were probably for members (the mother might have been English or Scottish). While the Presbyterians were very restrictive, the Reformed were between the almost closed door of the Presbyterians, and the open door of the Lutherans, Catholics, and Anglicans. The Reformed were most open to the Lutherans, which might have arisen for several causes. One of the parents may have been Reformed. Or, the Reformed may have been sharing a building and a minister with the Lutherans. Overall, the Reformed registers are short of non-Germanic names and other ethic backgrounds.
An older practice in Europe, which was not so common in America, was to have a person of a better social status as a sponsor. A serf might ask his Lord or the Lord's wife to be a sponsor. They might serve, or they might ask a friend to act for them.
In the Presbyterian church, at least one of the parents had to be a member. Many records show a baptism of an adult was followed in a few months by the baptism of a child of the parents.
One of the lessons we learn is that the baptismal records for the children of a family may be found in different church registers. This makes the search in the baptismal registers a tedious process. Just finding the churches in a given area would be a difficult task. For several years, John Humphrey has been engaged in collecting all of the baptism records that he could find for all churches. He has published these as a series of books, generally one per county. Thus, the search for baptismal records for any given individual is shortened considerably. Unfortunately, the task has not proceeded beyond Pennsylvania.
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.