Baptism Date
Many records will show a baptism date only or a christening and baptism date. They are not necessarily the same thing.
"Even though the words baptism and christening are used interchangeably, there is a subtle difference. Christening refers to the naming ceremony (to "christen" means to "give a name to") where as baptism is one of seven sacraments in the Catholic Church."
It would be very helpful to have a place on the person page to add the baptismal date separate from the christening date.
Thank You
Comments
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When there are two dates in a baptismal record, one of them is the birthdate, the other is the date of the sacrament. The single sacrament which includes both naming and getting wet.
How do I know this? Easy: every European language besides English has just a single word for baptism/christening. This includes Latin, the language of record in the Catholic church up until the 20th century in many places.
The reason English speakers have such a hard time telling apart baptism and christening is that they are ONE AND THE SAME, 99.99% of the time.
That said, most of the 0.01% of cases where they're different rites (usually years apart) occur in Anabaptist-derived denominations. This is why FamilySearch's Source Linker files events labeled "baptism" under Other Information - Custom Event. This is a highly annoying (read: infuriating) behavior that we've been begging them to change for years.
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I'm not sure what the suggestion is here. Is it that certain indexed Records that come over with a Christening Date fact or a Baptism Date fact should auto-import into the Tree with two facts, same date? If so, it seems simlar to https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/132850/baptism-dates-are-listed-as-birth-dates#latest .
Or is it a request to add a new standard field for profiles in the Tree?
Part of the reason "Christening" gets special treatment is that, for a certain range of times and places, the baptism record is often the only early-life record that was made AND it's a good guess that the baptism was within a few days of birth.
But one can already add a Custom Event of "Baptism", or "Adult Baptism", or "Naming Ceremony", or "Baptism (Baptist)", to a profile where the person actually had multiple baptisms, or a non-baptismal naming ceremony.
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As you acknowledge, "the words baptism and christening are used interchangeably". This is because (infant) baptism / christening in the (Roman) Catholic and Anglican churches is the same thing.
Like you, I have read about the idea that "Christening" is the naming part of the ceremony and "Baptism" involves the sprinkling of water, but have never found this acknowledged by the major churches (on their "official" websites). Given that you surely accept the fact that these two things (naming and "wetting the head") take place as part of the same event, why two separate fields on the person page - the place and date would be identical!
What most of us want is for FamilySearch to recognise that, in parish records, infant baptism = infant christening, so all records should be classified as "christenings", in order that source data goes to the Vitals (Christening) section on the person page, instead of to Other Information. The "Baptism" in the latter section should be acknowledged by FamilySearch as purely being intended for recording adult / believer baptism events.
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