You can normally expect to find the following information for each entry:
Date of Birth, Date of Baptism, (sometimes as much as 40 or 50 years afterwards), Surname, Christian name, Parents' Christian names, Address, Occupation, Entry number and Source reference number.

The source Reference Reference number referred to is the number of the roll of microfilm at the London Metropolitan Archives, (see Contacts page), that you can view for yourself.

The absence of any of the above information can mean either that the entry was blank or illegible. The baptisms of the children of single women in particular are unlikely to record the name of the childs father.

Multiple matches indicate that either a name is particularly common in the population as a whole, such as Smith or Jones, or that they are all part of the same family. There are numerous examples throughout the Registers of whole batches of children being Baptised at the same time.

There are also many examples of families recording the Baptisms of their children from one generation to the next. It is not at all unusual for a family to have lived and worked in the same area for over 400 years.

If you are fortunate enough to have Watermen & Lightermen amongst your Ancestors, you are very likely to be able to discover a vast amount about them. Extensive archives exist about the 'Aristocrats of the Thames'.

If you are convinced that your Ancestors did indeed come from the Docklands we recommend you first search the archives of the Company of Watermen & Lightermen, as this will tell you which parishes they lived in. Remember that pre 1836, Parish registers are the only place where you will obtain details of your Ancestors Baptisms, Marriages and Burials.

The Parishes bordering St Peter's are:
St George in the East, Cannon Street Road [out of Stepney 1729]
St Paul Shadwell, High Street, [1656, out of Stepney 1669]
St John Wapping, Church street[1617, out of Stepney 1694]
All of these Parishes are descended from the original mediaeval Parish Church of St Dunstan's, White Horse Street, Stepney.

-A Passion For Family History-

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