I have a problem with the edit person screen. I have a family of father, mother and 1 child. The child’s edit person sreen shows all facts including deaths of father and mother. The father’s screen shows details of the child. The mother’s screen does not show any events for the child at all.
I put the matter to tech support who suggested I add a birth date for the mother. I don’t have a baptism date, let alone a birth date for the mother, only the fact that she was the mother of the child. However, if I put in a fake fact for the mother dated before the birth of the child, then the child’s details appear on the mother’s edit person screen.
The child appears on the father’s edit person screen because there is an occupation fact for him which was on the baptism register and was dated only the year of baptism of the child - so this fact predated the child’s baptism on the edit person screen and thus the child’s facts appear on the father’s screen.
So - what fake fact do I include for parents to make their children’s details show on the edit person screen? Bear in mind that this fake fact will appear in all reports for the parent.
The feature requires that the dates of the other people’s events that will be included lie within the lifespan of the focus person inferred from their events. The fact is everyone was born and it is possible to edtimate a date and to qualify it with modifiers such as Estimated, About, Circa, Before, From-To. It’s of benefit to have even a guess for the Birth and Death dates for other reasons, too.
I try always to have at least a Birth date for each person, even if it’s only an estimated birth date. Lots of things in RM work better when people have Birth dates. I enter such as dates as something like est 1853.
That being said, here are couple of things you could try.
- Enter a Birth fact for the mother with an estimated birth date and customize the Birth fact just for the mother to make the sentence for the Birth fact be completely blank. I don’t know about Family Group Sheets, but the blank sentence should prevent the Birth fact from appearing in narrative reports.
- Enter a Birth fact for the with an estimated date and to mark the Birth fact as private. Again I don’t know about Family Group Sheets, but there is an option to include or not include private facts in narrative reports.
I have not tested either of these techniques to see how close they come to meeting your needs, but they are something you might try.
I estimate birth dates by standard genealogical approximations. Then I add a source as myself and note the standard. In the citation I give the name of the person, event, and date it was based on.
Free form Source:
“This date was estimated by Renee M. Zamora using standard genealogical approximations. (You may use standard genealogical approximations. From a marriage date, you can estimate birth dates. You can estimate that a man was married at age twenty-five and a woman at age twenty-one. You can also estimate that a first child was born one year after the parents’ marriage and that subsequent children were born every two years after that. [A Member’s Guide to Temple and Family History Work, pg. 12])”
Citation page number field.
based on Eva Fredericks birth 16 Jun 1902
Thank you all for your assistance.
TomH - I read the Help pages again and did find the explanation that the edit person window will only show family events during the person’s lifetime. Thank you. The Help page doesn’t say that a date has to be entered first otherwise the screen won’t be populated. If this had been explained in the Help pages it would have saved several days of frustration.
I have started to put in estimated birth dates now!
thejerrybryan - Thanks for these suggestions - they both work, and could be useful. The more I played around with the estimated dates, I realised that I should be up-front about them and not hide them away so I make them public and put a note beside each one to explain the assumptions made.
rzamor1 - Thanks for this. It gives a reasoned explanation based on a standard which I can use. I am in the process of sourcing and citing everything, so I can use your suggestion for the estimated dates instead of just attaching a note.
Thank you all once again - your efforts are appreciated.
I’ve read the discussion about the use of estimated birth dates, and suggested workarounds to maintain the integrity of narrative reports. One of the benefits of a birth date of course is that it allows RM to insert the person’s age at each subsequent event on the edit screen. However I think you can achieve the same by using the Christen fact type.
In the ‘real’ world - certainly here in the UK - the terms ‘christening’ and ‘baptism’ are interchangeable in everyday language when used to describe the ceremony of simultaneously naming a child and admitting them into the Church. Of course the parents will actually have already decided on a name - or christened - their newborn child, usually at or before the time of birth.
On the edit screen, if a Christen event has a date, RM calculates a person’s age for subsequent events without the need for a separate a Birth event. This seems sensible to me. On the other hand, if you use a Baptism event instead then no age is calculated. The rite of baptism – a person’s initial admission into the Christian Church – can take place at any age (if at all these days). Thus RM seems to be saying baptism cannot be used as a starting point for age calculations. Again, a reasonable assumption I think.
Can anyone please comment on whether my interpretation is right, or is there some other difference that I’ve missed? RM’s online Help doesn’t make it very clear, so am I reading the situation correctly? If I am right, then I think I might change all my Baptism events to Christen events.
Also, what is the purpose of the Christen (adult) fact type? This one seems to a bit unnecessary; it acts exactly like the Baptism fact type in that no subsequent age calculations are triggered. At the very least, to avoid further confusion, perhaps this fact type should be renamed ‘Baptism (adult)’.
Christen is considered close to the birth, and can be a birth replacement. Christen (adult) is later in life. Baptism can take place at any age. Neither of those are birth replacements.
yes you are correct that Christening will allow a person’s age to be displayed when a Baptism will NOT ( it should however and maybe a enhancement request) BUT you can only use this IF you have a Baptism/Christening event-- in my case my 2nd g-grand and half brother were born before the 1837 requirement of civil registration–so no birth info or Baptism found-- I had to use an estimated date based on the earliest census they were in…
The Church of England website says— Some churches will use the word ‘baptism’ and some the word ‘christening’. The moment when your child has water poured or wiped on their head is the actual baptism and is at the heart of the service.
Babies are baptized during a christening service just as couples are ‘married’ during a ‘wedding’ service.
Basically it is the same here in the States BUT there are subtle differences between Christening and Baptism— in a Catholic Ceremony ( maybe a few others), you are asked what name do you give this child ( an infant)–so it is a naming ceremony as well as a Baptism BUT you would NEVER use the Christening fact for a Catholic Baptism-- and as far as I know, you would NEVER use the Christening Fact for a Baptist who was Baptized as each individual decides when they are ready to be Baptized–in some Churches, the infants are DEDICATED at birth BUT not Baptized— as an FYI, anyone can in an emergency situation Baptize a baby and I have found in these instances that when it was recorded in the Church records there was no name or sex listed —just baby of John Smith-- whether the child lived or died-- as another FYI as to how strict some Religions are-- had a relative who lost a baby right after I was born— baby was never Baptized, which really bothered the mother–so I asked the Church if the baby could be Baptized posthumously–they said NO-- they could do a naming ceremony…
You basically answered your own question-- there is an Adult Christening fact BECAUSE Christening Facts ( infants) do have age calculations which you do NOT want for an adult – and really beside a ADULT Christening Fact there should be a ADULT Baptism Fact-- in those Religions that actually use Baptism and do ask what name do you give this child, that question would NOT be asked of an adult being Baptized…
Basically whether I record a fact as Baptism or Christening depends on how it is recorded in the Church records or how it is referred to by the Church in a present day ceremony BUT there is no right or wrong-- it is what you want to do…
RM does use the date from the Christen fact as a surrogate for the Birth date in the absence of a Birth fact for calculating ages and for setting the Living Flag, etc. It does not use the Baptism fact in the same manner, even when the baptism is an infant baptism.
Whenever this subject comes up in any RM forum, a religious war usually breaks out on the forum because there are very sincere and deeply held beliefs in various religious traditions either that christening is the correct term or that baptism is the correct term even when it is an infant. I take no position on which viewpoint is correct. I simply suggest that from the point of view of genealogy software, the software should support both viewpoints as options because there will be users of the software from both religious traditions and because none of the users from these traditions will ever be happy using the convention from the other tradition that is not in accord with their beliefs. They simply won’t do it, and I wouldn’t expect them to.
I do understand the argument that RM cannot possibly know in the absence of a Birth fact if a baptism is an infant baptism or a teenage baptism or an adult baptism. But I bet that RM users will know and could set an appropriate option. Even in the absence of an option, I suspect that most users from the baptism camp for infants would be happy to add a Birth fact for individuals with an adult Baptism fact. Remember that for anybody in your database who actually does have a Birth fact, this whole question is a non-issue. The issue is only for people who don’t have a Birth fact and do have either a Baptism fact or a Christen fact.
Thanks all for your comments. nkess you can of course get lots of baptism details before 1837 by looking at English parish registers. thejerrybryan like you I have no particular position on the christening v baptism issue.
The main thing is you’ve confirmed my understanding from a RM / genealogy point of view. That’s all I was looking for.