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Baptism/Christening Bug

Johnreim
Johnreim ✭
October 29, 2022 edited July 12, 2024 in Family Tree

If a Baptism record is attched to an individual. it is filed under other information>custom event. As a result if that is the only identifying information for the individual, they are not considered Temple Ready. The client must cut/copy the information and paste it in the Christening slot under Vitals.

Is it possible to update the software such that Baptisms would be entered automatically as Christenings and not rely on the ability of the Clients to catch and fix the error? It seems a shame that some individuals might not have their Temple work completed because of a software bug. thanks

1

Answers

  • Johnreim
    Johnreim ✭
    October 29, 2022


    0
  • Cindy Hecker
    Cindy Hecker ✭✭✭
    October 29, 2022

    It is not a bug, there is a difference between baptism and christening and thus the reason FamilySearch treats them as different. Not every baptism is a christening. If you search you can find lots of discussion on the topic here in the community.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 30, 2022 edited October 30, 2022

    @Cindy Hecker

    No, Cindy. your comments are completely incorrect. As Julia points out at https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/477276#Comment_477276 there is no difference whatsoever. True, adult baptism might represent a different rite in some denominations, but both the Church of England and Roman Catholic churches use the terms interchangeably.

    The problem being referred to here is not a bug as such, however. It is just the result of total inconsistency by FamilySearch in categorising the exact same records as Baptisms in some cases, but Christenings in others. More recently, the former position seems to have been increasingly adopted, leading to the inconvenience described.

    There is absolutely no reason that infant baptisms should not be classified as Christenings, thus allowing their addition (via the source linker) to place their data directly into the Vitals section, instead of under Other Information.

    In the comparatively rare instances where it is an adult baptism collection in question, I feel it would be in order to treat this in a different manner. These rituals often involve full immersion, a personal (rather than parental) commitment and would not involve godparents and the same "blessing" as with infant baptism / christening events. But their categorisation is another subject altogether from what the poster has raised here.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 31, 2022 edited October 31, 2022

    @Cindy Hecker

    Just in case there is still some misunderstanding on the issue I am posting a typical example of what FamilySearch has taken to doing more recently. As you can see, this (infant) christening / baptism event has been categorised as "Baptism", meaning it will be placed in the Other Information section when the source is added. The former practice was to add all such events as a "Christening", so the data would be carried across to the Vitals section once the source was added. So, nothing to do with adult / "believer" baptism, just an inconvenient change that FamilySearch refuses to remedy / undo.

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