Genealogy Chat

In Lancashire, at least in the 1940s and 1950s, it was far more common to ask relations to be godparents for your children than to ask a friend.

and they were not always in the same country ....................


For example, my mother was born in 1903, her mother's sister had emigrated to the US in 1902, just 3 days after she and my grandmother had each married.

Aunt Hannah in NJ was my mother's godmother ........... and she never mentioned anyone else.


It was traditional for there to be 3 godparents ................ girls had 2 godmothers and 1 godfather, and boys had 2 godfathers and 1 godmother.

Of course, this was not a strict rule!

Thanks, Sylvia - that could be useful.

My mother's family were quite conventional, and I remember she described her mother as 'quite Victorian'. (As far as things like this go, though they were unusually forward-looking in things like education for girls).

However, my grandmother had a lifelong friend whose family weren't related to hers but were regarded and referred to as if they were (and vice versa). So my godmother might have been that friend. Or her daughter, who I remember from my childhood and always kept in touch with my mother (until my mother's death in 1969 that is, by which time I was an adult).

I must chase up that connection. I've been meaning to anyway ( in case someone still alive remembers my mother, and can help to fill out my very sketchy picture of her life). I only remember their Christian names, but (thanks to a few of my mother's papers surviving) I have 1or 2 addresses from the 1950s which may be a lead.

I suppose a baptismal record (if any) would be the only possible paper trail left from being a godparent?

Ah - just looked up the name of the above daughter. Though unrelated to my middle name, it is a form of my mother's younger sister's name.....

SylviainCanada, you have just made me think about traditions and my own baptism...:-) and I find that my parents observed the same traditions, although we none of us are from Lancashire, so maybe the tradition wasn't regional but national.

I was baptised in the late 1950's and had 2 godmothers and 1 godfather (2 aunts and a grandfather).
One godmother, mum's eldest sister, was not present at the baptism as she had emigrated to Australia some years before I was born, yet she is named on my Bapt Cert.
My middle name is the Christian name of the other godmother, the one who was present,, whether that had anything to do with it I don't know..