FamilySearch and Ancestry Birth and Christening differences
Hi. I am not a heavy user of Ancestry and do the majority of my work in FamilySearch. Just wondering what others think of this issue. Ancestry seems to treat the Christening Date as if it were the Birth date. I noticed after I linked people to Ancestry, who had no birth date in Family Search, just a Christening Date, Ancestry will often show me a source and this source has both the Birth and Christening Date. So I copied both across. I was getting suspicious because they were usually the same. So today I opened the actual source Ancestry referred to and lo and behold, it came from FamilySearch and was the same source I had already attached to the person but the source clearly only showed the Christening date. It appears that Ancestry, in the absence of a Birth date, will copy the Christening Date into both the Birth and Christening field. I have been using the Christening date to manually generate a partial birth date. For instance if the child was christened on 21st Sep 1620 then I would say it was born Sep 1620 as we can't really assume the christening happened a day later (mind you ... that is most likely the case). Now I am wondering, considering we are dealing with a situation (i.e before 1700) where the only records are Church books and where the actual birth date will never be recorded (some parishes in Germany do but most don't) does it really matter? What is the preferred way to proceed with these older ancestors? As I need to help others the question may come up. Thanks 
Answers
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I have always understood that we enter the information that is recorded on the document and to assume nothing. It is always wise to check records and entries and it is our responsibility to correct any errors we find, such as the one you mention. I have been looking closely at one of my husband's ancestors this week. He was born in January 1820 and was Christened in 1838. Fortunately he was born at a time when there are a few more corroborating records and his place in the family in relation to my husband confirmed by a Y-DNA trace and shared Ancestry DNA matches so we know that he is the same person in the records.
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I never assume a birth date from a christening date. I have seen children baptized at home the day they were born and children baptized months or two or three years later. If the christening or some other record does not give the birth date just live the birth space blank. Always look at the original record. Sometimes the birth date is there, just not indexed. Or it may be that the birth is indexed but not the christening.
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Thanks @Jan Travers In general this is correct. Sadly I had copied quite a few across from FamilySearch to Ancestry and it took a few days for me to wake up to the fact that there may have been something not right. So I checked the original record. These were all births before civil records appeared i.e. before 1799. So the only evidence in these cases is the actual christening entry in the church record book. I had assumed Ancestry had somehow managed to find birth records. I know better now. However ... as this appears to be a common practice in Ancestry, I am assuming there are innumerable cases now where this has been applied, where the christening date also becomes the birth date. Far too big a job for me to go back and correct my own let alone anyone elses. I do go back to the original but before 1800 these are usually scribbled in a church book where only the mother, father, date of christening and the godparents are mentioned. I was hoping to be pointed to some written guidance so I could also pass this on to Ancestry but seems to be everyone has their own preferences. In Rootsmagic for instance, it is very annoying when the birth date is empty as the list of names then gives no idea of which member with the same name you are looking at. Hence even a year is handy.
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Thanks @Nodia Wunderly . you are right re the christening. When it comes to the Catholic church it is fairly safe to assume that christening happened within hours/days of the birth. So using the year or month is fairly safe. Not having the actual day, with a note stating that the birth is assumed from the christening date, makes it obvious where the birth date came from. I myself was born into a catholic family and the midwife performed an emergency christening because I was born blue, not breathing, with the cord around my neck. In the Catholic Church, when there is a danger of someone who has not been baptised, dying, then any baptised Catholic can perform this emergency baptism and is urged to do so because children dying without baptism at least when I was a child, were assumed to be hanging around in a state of limbo
. However this emergency baptism counts as the actual baptism and it was forbidden (by church doctrine) to baptise a child twice. I know this because I got into big trouble at school. As my father was friends with the local priest and had promised him he would baptise his first child, the priest had no qualms baptising me a 2nd time. When our teacher taught us about emergency baptism and that it was impossible to be baptised twice, my hand shot up (much to my regret later) and I put her straight. This sort of led to a huge amount of trouble and next faux-pas I was told to stop lying. I am actually glad the midwife baptised me as without it I would not be sitting here typing this story Getting my head shoved into a bucket of freezing cold water sort of did the trick and caused me to breathe and scream at the top of my lungs, so I am told. So in my case ... which "christening" would actually go into the records. Just joking as the only baptism I am interested in having recorded is the one done at the temple many years later 0 -
Hi Folks
In reference to birth dates and Christening dates.
For me I've always thought there there needs to be a drop down in the FamilySearch Christening date as many old religions do not Christen they have would I would call a parish baptism. Eg: Scotland and many others
So if there were was a drop down it would be more accurate.
For now I have accepted (Under Protest) that FamilySearch uses the words Christening and Baptism in old church records as the same.
I have been assuming birth as the same as Christening year but the issue with that is that there are many children Christened as Adults. As well as many children in families were often Christened together, so without careful research one could assume multiple births.
So now I just add an "about" date in the birth field if all I have found is a Parish Baptismal record that does not have a birth date, just to keep the software happy.
The joys of Research 😬
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In Ancestry in the German version they copy the Family Search "Christening" date into a field called "Child Baptism" then when you accept the source, the christening date on the source gets copied into the "Christening" date and if the birth date is empty ... also into the birth date. No idea why the German version of Ancestry distinguishes between "Christening" and "Child Christening" if they end up populating both field when the record comes from FamilySearch.
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I have a group of ancestors in Devon, England, who must have not been part of a church when their three children were born. Their actual baptismal records, when that was finally done, show their birthdates which were several years before. I think that it is always good to look at the actual record if you can. But I would never presume that the birth and baptismal birthdates are the same or close..
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