Library Forum

Whilst trawling through baptism registers I can't help noticing the frequent number of occasions when apparent sisters or sisters-in-law gave birth within the space of a few days.
This leads me to suspect that such events may have been deliberately engineered!
In other words, may some sisters have collaborated on the timing of their offspring so that after the happy double birth, one sister would take over nursing duties to free up the other sister to follow other activities?
I would be interested to hear if anyone has come across any references to this.

Hi Murf

I haven’t noticed the synchronization you mention, but this is probably because I go through those marriages and baptisms in a quick, unthinking, kind of way, whereas you give some thought to the family groups. But I greatly doubt that there was any deliberate synchronization. If there was, then the prevailing belief that the Irish were an improvident, shiftless, lot would have been rebutted straightaway, and we would have been held up before the world as a most provident and shiftfull people indeed.
But neither can I give any good explanation. With most marriages taking place in February, most first babies must have been born in late Autumn, but that does not answer your question. With many Masses (and baptisms and other rites) taking place in dwellng houses, it’s possible that people in outlying districts waited for a convenient occasion for the baptism of their child, but that does not answer your question either. Anyway, from here on in, I will look out for synchronization.

Sheila