IT TECHS - Add Baptism to Christening line
IT TECHS - Add Baptism to Christening line. The Baptism records are going in to Other Records. Everyday I have to manually put the Baptism Date and Place in the Christening line. Takes too much time and is often overlooked by other researchers. I have been very patient with this, but now it needs to be corrected. It is an easy fix. Just add Baptism to the computer language.
Thank you for all that you do.
Cynthia Andrews
Comments
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The problem comes because not every baptism is a christening so having it automatically would cause more problems. So the default to not add baptism to Christening is correct.
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Here is a recent discussion thread about this very topic: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/93268/christening-and-baptism
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Every record I have seen to date that has been indexed as a baptism has been the same event as a christening. The main problem lies in the indexing project instructions, which should always be to index a baptism / christening as a christening. This would avoid the problem reported by @CSAndrews.
The only time I would see an event should be indexed as a baptism is if it was a ritual performed in later life, primarily by denominations that do not adhere to child baptism / christening - the two terms being synonymous in most mainstream, "Christian" churches (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, etc.)
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@Cindy Hecker, in every language besides English, your statement that "not every baptism is a christening" comes out as pure nonsense: "not every X is an X". Also, none of the major religions of 18th-19th century Europe make any distinction between a naming rite and an initiation rite. Naming is initiation, and initiation is naming. You can't have one without the other. Therefore, FS's treatment of baptism as a different species from christening is utter balderdash. They are the same thing, and should be filed identically. In those exceedingly rare cases where a different rite is meant by one of the words, it can be moved to Other Information by FS's users.
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I have worked with separate christening and baptismal records in southern Germany. I don't remember if they were Catholic or Protestant.
Baptists separate naming and baptism; that's why they are "baptists".
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IT TECHS - Thank you for your explanation of Baptisms and Christenings, but it doesn't correct the problem. I noticed that this problem has been fairly recent in the last few years. The baptism or christening records used to go directly to the Christening line and now it goes to Other Events, however, if something is in the birth line OR if another identical baptism record is added, I have seen the baptism record fill in the Christening Section. I am bringing this to your attention because everyday I have to physically cut and paste the Baptism record to the Christening line or else it is left blank, which means no birth and no christening dates. This is a problem that I know the IT TECHS can fix. Suggestion: Infant Baptism and/or Christening
If it is an Adult Baptism, then it can go down in other events.
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Your responses have come from Family Tree users who also have experience the same issue.
As I have implied, the solution to the problem is quite simple: tell all project leaders to get these events indexed as Christenings and not as Baptisms. But, who does that? How do we get a message to the "Head of indexing" to explain the problem being caused by project leaders differentiating between two events that are identical, but are telling those working on the projects to index the events under the inappropriate heading?
Or maybe they are indexed as christenings and then changed to baptisms further along in the process. Who knows? I've tried to get this matter drawn to the attention of someone, or a team, who could address the issue - but how? Unless one of the moderators escalates the problem, on our behalf, to the relevant manager / team, this issue is likely to be repeated over and over again in future projects.
As far as addressing the records that already have been published online, I don't see there is any chance of these being corrected, (in order that we can be saved the unnecessary and unwanted effort of typing the details into the Christening Vitals field, instead of the data going there directly during the source attachment process - as is the case for most christening/baptism indexing projects).
If a moderator is reading this - please help us here! How do we get this message through to someone who can respond to us and, more importantly, address the matter?
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I attach many sources with christening records; the source linker puts them directly into the Christening field. I also attach many sources with baptism records, and in a subset of those I cut and paste from the Baptism field to the Christening field. I do this only when I am sure the baptism is an infant baptism, but this involves looking at other sources so is beyond the scope of indexing.
It is a complex issue and there is no simple solution. I expect the record owner also has a lot of say about the indexing.
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I'd say well over 90% of the things labeled "baptism" on FS belong under christening; certainly 100% of the ones I encounter do. However, @Paul W, it's not an indexing problem: the vast majority of the records being attached were indexed years or even decades ago, and none of them ever gave the indexer a choice between "baptism" and "christening". If there's a choice, it's between life events, for example on the current Slovakia church books project: krst, manželstiev, smrťi (baptisms, marriages, deaths), and on the Hungarian Jewish vital registers project: születés/birth, házasság/marriage, elhalálozás/death.
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Yep in Dutch Church records (the main way to get vital information prior to 1812 in the Netherlands) is the DTB books - Dopen, Trouwen, en Begraven (aka Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials). I add the baptism date and place to Christening, and if there is no birth date, I add "before [baptism date here]" for the birth date.
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@Jordi Kloosterboer, are there separate words available in Dutch for "christening" versus "baptism"? Google says not, but I don't always believe Google.
(The problem with "before [baptism]" is that at least in 19th century Hungary, birth and baptism were on the same day about half the time. It was the ideal that everyone aimed for, because they didn't want their babies to die as heathens. It slowly relaxed as infant mortality decreased, but waiting more than a few days between birth and ceremony was rare before the 20th century.)
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This is a great discussion and this topic has been an issue even before FS FamilyTree. There are two similar but separate issues.
- The vital conclusions of the Person are Name, Sex, and the 4 events: Birth, Christening, Death, Burial. The purpose of these vitals is to be able to describe the vital aspects of the person's life. The events chosen are to conclude the entering and passing of life. Christening typically is very close to the birth, and burial very close to the death and those are there because there is more likelihood of those events being recorded in historical records. Why not Baptism? That term tends to be more confusing for many users, and could be much later than the Birth event so it was not included in the vitals. Likewise other birth-like and death-like events were chosen to be in OtherInformation to capture, but not make the vitals more complicated. There are many posts discussing the details of various cultures, government, and religious record.
- The issue of the historical record indexing equating baptism/christening is kind of confusing, based on #1 thought-process. I think it would be good to consider a more accurate and matching methodology to the indexing process. But we have to realize historical records and their indexes can be sourced from other record-custodians, parties, and indexing efforts outside of FS.
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I find the "before" adjective is interpreted as "on or before", so there is no problem when baptism was on the day of birth.
In colonial Canada baptism often occurred months after birth.
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@joemartel, the problem in #1 only arises because the people creating the standard were/are English speakers. If they were, say, German, then the Vitals box would contain birth, baptism, death, and burial, and "christening" would be just another example of the English language having too many words.
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Yep that is what I interpret it as too. And if I find an exact birth date somehow like in a future marriage supplement document, then I add the actual date of course.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi, German Anabaptists differentiated between infant naming (christening) and baptism, and as I have mentioned before I have worked many German church records in which baptism and christening were separate events.
All: Would it be helpful if, in the source linker, we had the option of switching a Baptism to a Christening when moving the vital detail over from record to profile?
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So what do those Anabaptists call the events/rites? The only German word I know for baptism/christening is Taufen.
I think that Source Linker should simply put all baptisms, christenings, and namings in the Vitals box, regardless of which English translation happens to have been chosen for the event. This would result in conclusions being in the correct place almost every time, instead of the current setup's once in a blue moon.
If Linker already had a mechanism for moving events or facts around, then a choice of destination would of course be good -- but it doesn't, and I don't think such a feature is worth the investment in time and energy (and breaking of things not currently broken). Just reset the destination on everything labeled "baptism", and save everyone hours of annoyance and tedium.
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IT TECHS - I am working with adding Christening records right now and the record is put in Other Events. I wanted to make you aware that when the Baptism and Birth fields are blank you cannot submit the name for Temple Ordinances. So I am forced to copy and paste the Baptism date and place from Other Events and put it in the Baptism Field. Not everyone does this and the ordinances are not being done. How can we get this quickly resolved?
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German naturally has compound words to distinguish between infant baptism and adult aka believer's baptism: Kindertaufe, Gläubigentaufe.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gläubigentaufe
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@CSAndrews, don't hold your breath. This nonsense has been in place, unchanged, since at least the very beginnings of Family Tree, nine years ago. I remember an extended conversation about it on the GetSatisfaction forum years ago; nothing (obviously) ever came of it.
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Are adult baptismal records being indexed here that I am unaware of?
That is the crucial question. And the answer is yes, adult baptismal records are being indexed and yes, you appear to be unaware of them. Else this discussion would not be necessary. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_in_Mormonism
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Because infant baptisms are proxies for births, indexing all baptisms as infant baptisms would interfere with record matching. Better to fail safe.
Yes, evaluating each baptism record to determine if it is an infant baptism is tedious. I often leave it until late in profile development. If a birth record turns up I can skip evaluating the baptism record and just leave it in Other Information.
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I just had to add this screenshot, which illustrates the silliness of the whole christening / baptism argument. Three indexed records for the same event, but one indexed as a christening, one as a baptism and one (totally without justification) as a birth.
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And, @Paul W , your point is...?
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Whatever you care to make of it.
Okay, just that in an "ideal world" all three would have been indexed as one type of event. In this example, one (the birth) is wrong and one (the baptism) wastes time in having to move it across from the Custom Event section to the Christening vital. Well, that is if the christening source had not already been attached.
BTW - your response reminded my of an old work colleague who used to say exactly the same thing to me - "And your point is?" I know I can go a little "around the houses" in making my points, but I thought the above was a clear illustration of the issue of (unnecessary) inconsistency in the production of these sources.
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The point I take away from Paul W's three-way example is that it is utterly pointless to insist on a distinction when there clearly isn't one to be made.
Which misfiling affects more users: christenings (by any label) under Other, or adult baptisms under Vitals? I believe (strongly) that it is the former, and getting rid of that tedious and totally unnecessary annoyance at the price of the possibility of a few of the latter would be well worth it.
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The point I take from Paul W's example is that index records are prone to errors. The third record is an indexed index; odds are the error is in the historical record.
We all know it is far easier to merge details than to detangle them. For that reason I favor putting anything that might or might not be a christening record in the Other Information block, for later determination.
What would help is a radio button to transfer a baptismal record to the Christening field in the Vital Details block.
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Filing a rite under Vitals versus Other doesn't merge any details either way. There's nothing to detangle. There's just unnecessary tedium.
And: really? You'd rather file everything under Other, because of the <0.1% chance that something may actually belong there? You do realize that this misfiles the other >99.9% of things, right? It's like arresting everybody at the concert because there's word of one criminal who may be attending.
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You do realize that this misfiles the other >99.9% of things, right?
No. Two reasons why:
- Worldwide, across all faiths, adult baptism may be more prevalent than infant baptism.
- Also, if there be any "misfiling", it were far better done in a field not treated as vital data.
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So are you next going to start arguing that christenings should not automatically be entered in Christening, because of the off chance that one of them was a conversion or other adult rite, and not the christening of an infant? What's so sacred about vital data? It can be edited exactly the same as anything else.
Worldwide, across all faiths, adult baptism mostly didn't exist. The denominations that practice it did not gain widespread followings until the 19th-20th century, and even that was mostly in the United States, not Europe. None of the accepted religions of Austria-Hungary had ever heard of the concept, for example. Infant baptism is mandatory or highly expected in all Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist/Reformed, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican (including Episcopalian), and even Moravian and Nazarene churches. (The only accepted religions of the 19th century that are missing from that list are Unitarian and Jewish, which do not practice baptism/christening, so the question of adult versus infant doesn't apply.)
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