Lost Parish Register, Bourn, Cambridgeshire

Flicking through old newspapers, my eye was caught by an old advertisement in the Cambridge Chronicle & Journal, dated 24 October 1823.  It caught my eye as a lot of my research has been in the village of Bourn, Cambridgeshire, so I read on.

What the short advert said was:

PARISH REGISTER LOST.  

THE REGISTER of the BAPTISM of CATHARINE HAWKES, daughter of Christopher Hawkes, supposed to be born between the years 1690 and 1700, BOURN, in Cambridgeshire, or in some adjoining Village. Whoever will produce the Register of the Baptism of the said Catharine shall receive a handsome Reward for their trouble, by applying  to Samuel Marriott, painter and glazier, Royston, Herts.

I had a quick look and he's obviously referring not to a whole lost parish register, but a single entry in a parish register.  I then wondered if he'd ever found it and what he had wanted it for!

So I had a quick look .... and I can't find Catherine Hawkes either. But I built up a small story of finds during my searches.  I wasn't working from the original parish registers, but transcriptions.  All transcriptions are at the mercy of the transcriber and what they see.  You can only write down what you see when you transcribe, which is why it becomes vital, for some quests, to obtain the originals (or at least a copy of the originals) so you can scan through yourself, seeking an individual entry that might've escaped the notice of a transcriber who was intent on transcribing 1000 records.

Christopher Hawkes was baptised in Bourn in 1600, on 3 May.  He was the son of Christopher & Susan Hawkes.  I also found, in 1655, a sister, Rachel Hawkes, baptised at Bourn on 3 June, daughter of Christopher & Susan Hawkes.

I could see Rachel's (probable) wedding, at nearby Elsworth, to James Rook on 27 October 1679.

I couldn't find the marriage of Christopher, but did find some children from that marriage.  Online research shows that Christopher Hawkes married Flower Barton.  Flower Barton was probably the wife, baptised at Orwell on 10 March 1663/64.

I found seven children so far, with various spellings of their last names.  The family appear to have started out in Orwell, then moved to Bourn - the two are only a couple of miles apart.

1. 1686 at Orwell:, Richard Hawkes, baptised 26 August, son of Christopher Hawkes and Flower
2. 1687 at Orwell, Christopher Hawkes, baptised 20 October, son of Christopher Hawkes and Flower
3. 1691 at Bourn, Sarah Hawkes, baptised 30 March, daughter of Christopher Hawkes but no mother's name given.
4. 1695 at Bourn, Thomas Haukes, baptised 4 May, son of Chrisofer Haukes with no mother's name
5. 1699 at Bourn, Susana, baptised 14 November, daughter of Christifer Haukes & Honor
6. 1701 at Bourn, Honor Hawks, baptised 3 July, daughter of Christopher Hawks and Flora. 
7. 1706 at Bourn,  John Hawkes, baptised 3 December, son of Christopher Hawkes and Flora

When it comes to transcription, where it says Honor above that'll most likely be a transcriptionist not recognising it as Flora for the name.  Or, there was an Honour Barton, sister of Flower/Flora, so it could actually be Honour. Flora's sister Honour died aged 6 when Flower was 12!  As for Flower or Flora, that could be what the vicars wrote, or what the transcriptionist thought they could see - only inspection of the originals would give that answer.

The original scans of the parish registers are not available online, so I couldn't "see what I made of it".

Burials

• 1709:  There is a burial of a Christopher Hawkes at Bourn on 2 February 1708/09.  The parish register of burials doesn't say which Christopher Hawkes this is - on this date the father and the son were both alive (aged 48 and 21 respectively). I would assume it's the father by default, making a note that the other exists; if this isn't your tree then you don't have to research fine detail to the nth degree!
• 1712: There is a burial of Flower Hawkes at Bourn on 17 November.  

So, I doubt the original advertiser, seeking the entry in 1823, ever found any such Catherine.  Of course, I could be wrong - these days it's easy to locate every parish register, or identify its loss, then to access originals, or photos/scans of the originals, depending on the importance of the information to you.  I wonder if the original advertiser were just a genealogist trying to nail a small detail some aged aunt had mentioned....

Born in ~1700, it's entirely possible that somebody born in ~1760 would have known/met any such Catherine and when Samuel Marriott started his research in ~1820 he interviewed elderly family members and somebody aged ~60 would've said "there was a Catherine, I remember her" - and that's how many of us start, trying to tie in all those half stories, those snippets, we've overhead for years.

STOP IT!
I have to stop right there... I've already found what might be a further child and might be a clue to discovering the marriage... so I'm being sucked into a tree that's not my own!  Easily done.  I'd need the Barton, Cambridgeshire, parish registers for that and I don't have those, they are available from Cambridgeshire Family History Society, on their CD number 65, or FamilySearch has access to the same information held on two microfiches in Utah.  The original parish registers for Barton Cambridgeshire are held at Cambridge Archives, they cover: MARRIAGES 13 May 1754 - 22 October 1812 and BANNS: 21 April 1754 - 16 June 1807.

It's easy to get sucked into searching for elusive records, coming up with your own ideas about what to do/where to look next and what happened.... you have to learn to say "STOP".

We're spoilt these days, being able to sit on the sofa and get 80% of the "hard work" done in a few hours - accessing records our predecessors never dreamed of!

Sources: FreeREG and Familysearch