Baptism dates

jeanmanwaring1

Hello again - I refer to UK England, Lancashire - Nonconformist Church Records 1647 - 1996. Image name : 007561005 - 00057 and batch id : MS2R -DRH. You can plainly see the date of birth and the 'registered' date - would you index that as the baptism date ? Thanks so much, Jean.

AndLinda

@jeanmanwaring1 I received an answer which will help us. In this particular case we can use the "registered" date as the baptism date. It is possible they were baptized on that date and registered on that date. That makes sense to me.

Rimmer Household

Hi there

Thanks for your question:

We have checked the batch number you quoted above and in the Project instructions quote "If you aren't sure if a date column refers to a baptism date or a birth date, index it as a baptism date."

So our understanding of this is that you would index this record as a baptismal date. Despite the fact that it is clearly a birth date, but the entry type does not list births, so baptism is the closest.

If this answers your question please click yes at the end of the answer please, so we know this question has been answered thanks so much :-)

jeanmanwaring1

Hello Miriam, thankyou for your help but that still leaves the question of ' REGISTERED' ? The entry itself DOES ask for the actual BIRTH dates as well as the baptism dates. The way I am reading your answer tells me to index '13 Jul 1836' as both. You haven't mentioned where the word 'registered' applies to the entry. Sorry but I am so particular with my indexing, it has to be correct . Regards Jean.

AndLinda

Hi @jeanmanwaring1. You pose a very interesting question! Since there isn't a field for the "Registered" date, I wouldn't assume that the registered date would be the baptism either. I believe that the parents were reporting when their daughter was born to the minister (nonconformist) to have it registered to comply with the new rules of required registries for the nonconformists. I am looking into this further and hopefully get an answer.

Rimmer Household

This is a very interesting discussion and from my own limited knowledge, I have often thought that a birth date is not a Baptismal date, just as in a baptism is not a christening, but that's another story :-)

So in this instance and after checking the batch. There is no option to chose birth, so Baptism it is. Note that the "registered date is in 1837 so in my judgement I would go along with @AndLinda and use the registered date.

Although I don't agree with this line of thought as it creates more work when researching as children were often "Baptised" together on the one day. So quite often one needs to go look to find out why children were listed in the same year. (Considering there is 9 Months between pregnancies, I have found many of this example in my own ancestral line, there have been examples where children are baptised as adults and it really throws the research off)

So I've had to find the original record and then read it to see if the birth record is listed. if the record was Indexed as a birth, we wouldn't need to do this.

But I guess the "powers that be" decide what and how to index. I am still learning to live with it :-/

I was trained to "Use your best Judgement" and if all else fails read the project instructions.

Would do you think @SylviaSteny1

All the best

SylviaSteny1

Interesting as in Non conformist religions often you registered to become a member initially. sometime baptisms were not until much later

Rimmer Household

Thanks for your comment @SylviaSteny1 what are your thoughts about what date should be indexed in this particular record see below?

https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/90371/baptism-dates

SylviaSteny1

The registered date has been indexed mostly as the Baptism date- and reviewed as such. Any reseacher can look and clarify this as usually they can browse the original