310 On some Curiosities and Statistics of Parish Registers. 



Sunday, and even up to the first year of the present reign it is not 

 at all uncommon to find traces of this practice being continued — the 

 notes of the several functions being generally kept in a private book 

 o£ the clerk's. At Broad Hinton the registration appears to have 

 been left at one time entirely to the clerk, as is testified by the 

 following entry : " Through the omission of Edward Greenaway, 

 clerk of this parish, there was no register regularly kept from the 

 year 1742 to the year 1757, which great neglect was unknown to 

 the minister until Ed. Greenaway left Broad Hinton, Feb. y^ 20th, 

 1757." At Cherhill, on the other hand, I not infrequently find 

 double entries — up to the year 1813, when printed forms were sup- 

 plied in accordance with the Act of Parliament passed the preceding 

 sessions. These double entries (which contain generally some dis- 

 crepancy in spelling) I account for thus. The parson or curate, who 

 had ridden over from a distance to perform a baptism or a funeral, 

 entered it in the first book that came to hand. If this happened to 

 be the wrong one, the clerk,finding no entry on the following Sunday, 

 gave notice to the officiating clergyman; and he, if he had not been 

 himself the person to perform the service, entered it again, with 

 variations. Sometimes this discrepancy is considerable, as in a case at 

 Cherhill of two several entries in different books, of what is evidently 

 intended for the same marriage, although the names of both bride and 

 bridegroom are differently spelled and a different date is given. It 

 is almost like the well-known pocket-knife, which had had both o£ 

 its blades replaced by new ones, and had also had a new handle — but 

 still it was the same knife ! Again there is a case of a man who is 

 recorded in one of my books to have married a certain Elizabeth 

 Smythe on the 27th of September, 1780, but is by another book 

 stated to have been wedded on that day to Betty Moss. Elizabeth 

 and Betty are I need scarcely say different forms of the same name. 

 And as to the variation in the surname, it is not at all uncommon 

 to find large families who are called with perfect indifference by 

 either of two surnames — there is more than one family in Cherhill at 

 the present moment with regard to whom this is the case. Nor has 

 the same thing been always entirely unknown among persons of a 

 higher station in life than my parishioners. I find in Dale^s Wiltshire 



