No family records survive of Rudd, who enters the historical record as a dissenting, Baptist preacher in the 1710s. After moving between various dissenting churches, and encountering some doubts about Calvinism, he conformed in 1742. His poetic/homiletic output skews bizarrely towards funeral elegies and funeral sermons, usually dedicated to family survivors or to congregations who have lost a minister. Did other people do this?; Something else that's interesting--it seems that what the DNB says about Rudd's split w/ the Baptists is taken from self-justifying pamphlets he published in the 1730s. It's interesting that the print sphere was where he sought to explain and justify his own personal/professional trajectory.; Also he seems to have kept up parallel professional and authorial programs as doctor (and man-midwife!) as well as minister.