There are two baptisms of fatherless children named Joseph in St. Blazey in 1822. And there is a possibility that they are the same child.

  1. The first baptim was 26 Apr 1822: Joseph son of Mary Bonds was identified as a "Base Child".
  2. The second baptism was  21 Oct 1822: Joseph son of Mary Bond Hitchins is marked in the left margin with a "B." apparently meaning "base" and is further identifed as "7 months old", which would place his birth at about the same time as the birth of the Joseph in the first baptism.

I do not find a St. Blazey marriage for Mary Bond. One theory that I had was that she had married the father of the child and that the child was then rebaptized with the father's name. Another theory is that the father had been identified by October, so that the child was rebaptized with the father's surname, even though the parents had not married. There may be yet another plausible explanation for the two Josephs really being one and the same. Or they may have not been the same.

I am inclined to believe that they were the same and that the father had been identified and that either the parents had not married (else the father's name would appear in the second baptism).