Here is a lovely little treasure waiting for someone! I happened across it while I was looking for something else, as so often happens, and it isn't my family, worse luck, but I post it here just because.
"Sir
I am obligd to you for the Note you sent me respecting
the Christening of my Daughter and the entry of her into
the register of the Church but being a Dissenter I have
some scruples respecting the form of Baptism appointed
in the establishment but am greatly obligd to Mr
Humphry for his kindness in send the Note
I am your Obedient Servt
Willm Cawley
Cumins May 6th 1811"
You don't often find such personal things in parish registers, really, usually being only the bare facts of birth, marriage, and burial -- and here is a letter written in his own hand, with a personal detail that you might not otherwise know at all. And a very civil letter it is, too.
This is the register for Snitterfield in Warwickshire, from 1775-1812. The note is pasted into what was apparently a random blank page, as it is some distance from the record of William Cawley's daughter's baptism. Francis Homfray (most likely this one) was the curate of Snitterfield; he wrote the entries on the page below, and his distinctive script appears elsewhere in the register from around 1809 on; he signed his name at the end of some years. Cummins or Comyns was apparently the name of a farm in Snitterfield, as there was a family there (by the name of Badger) in 1841).
Here, near the bottom of the left-hand page, in the baptisms for 1810, is "Sarah, daughter of William Cawley by Sarah his wife was baptized April 22". What a treat, to have not only the birth record, but a note in the father's hand!
(As it turns out, Sarah Cawley was living as a servant in the household of "Lionel Howe, 25, Confectioner" in 1841, in Leamington.)
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