I would like to identify unusual time intervals between the birth and baptism/christening dates for people in my database.
By using the Problem Options screen I can find those individuals where the interval between death and burial falls outside a pre-determined number of days. Can the interval between birth and baptism/christening be identified in the same way - i.e. Baptised/christened more than X days after birth. Would this be possible please?
For example, I have some early ancestors with incomplete - and slightly odd - birth and baptism dates, depending on which source you look at. One source says my 8x great grandmother was born in 1577 but gives no baptism details; another source has her baptised in 1581, but with no birth date. Was there really a 4 year gap between these two events, or is one date wrong? If so, which one?
To be clear, Iâm not asking for advice about the veracity of different external sources, nor the prevailing practices that were observed at various times in the past. I just want RM to flag up these events so I can investigate them further.
Historically not every child was baptized or christened right after birth. It depends on the religion, and parentâs preference and access. Some families waited and baptized many children at one time. A four year gap can be very reasonable. What we will flag is when the christen (or any event) comes before the birth.
Thatâs not actually the case here in the UK, hence my request. Normal practice was to baptise soon after birth, within 4 weeks very often. This was connected to the high rate of infant mortality. Big gaps were unusual.
Please add the requested feature to the problem list.
As Renee said depends on regions etc â you named one location out of 100+ countries that made do something entirely different than UK. Also time period (as you mentioned ) and infant mortality rate.
I think that it is dangerous to make assumptions. As Steve says, in the UK (19C and earlier particularly) it was most common to baptise children within days/weeks of birth in the main faiths but by no means universal. I recall one ancestor having 4 children baptised on the same day, the eldest being 8 years old. âJourneymenâ, boatmen, etc tended to have their children baptised when they went home or to a stop where there was a church. Some in âother denominationsâ did not have a nearby chapel so could not always attend services weekly. There are others, like my father, who were only baptised before marriage, so he was born in 1906 and baptised in 1940!
I canât see the problem here. Like many, I suspect, when I find a baptism record pre civil registrations I use the year prefixed with âAbt.â for the date of birth until proven otherwise but I wouldnât want the program to enter that for me.
Thank you for comments about the variability of UK baptism practices.
Please note that I was not saying anything about baptism seemingly before birth but rather the opposite - situations where there appears to be an unusually long delay after a child was born.
If RM can flag up burials a long time after death using the Problem Options screen then it should also be able to identify baptisms a long time after birth. Itâs the same principle, and surely not too much of an ask.
Like you, I donât want the program to make an assumption on my behalf, I just want it find something that, at first sight, looks odd.
Nothing wrong with your feature request â my point was that the timing of baptism/Christening varies based on many factors (and can be much older than 4 months â including be older to say you want to be baptized).
The feature request should be able to variety of date difference (days or year for example). You could do a custom report and compare those date or outside option would be sqlite since that option is not working as needed.
Steveâas others have said, in the UK and other places, I have found where kids were baptized the day they were born/ several weeks to months after born and times when it was many years laterâhad 1 family that Baptized 4 kids on the same day ranging from age 12 to just bornâ the key to finding these are to scan the whole page making sure the address/ occupation matches-- Iâve been lucky that many of these baptisms have included the date of birth for the childâ just my experienceâŚ
As for your request itâs a good one BUT for now, you can identify unusual time interval between birth and baptism/christening dates in RM 10 by using Advanced Search or by making a groupâ criteria is the same for both
Donât know if you could do less than 1 year but I personally wouldnât be concerned if the child was under 1 when baptizedâŚ
Donât see anyway to print a copy of your findings-- maybe someone else can tell us-- if it was a small enough group, you could take a screen shotâŚ
While you can actually edit the person from either of these reports, I think I would create a group as you can color the group and you can customize the group to include the baptism dateâŚ
One other thing-- and before I say this, I want everyone to know that I do NOT work for them or am affliated with them in any wayâ I have personally found that when looking for marriages and baptisms in the UK, that FindMyPast is a lot better than Ancestry or Family Search as you can view the actual recordsâ again just my experienceâŚ
I find this an odd request for a problem alert and like the solution suggested by nkess, Many people do not bother to baptize children at all these days and a number of religious denominations support adult baptisms or dedications. Historically baptism right after birth was a practice of the Catholic Church and Church of England, to name two religions where this was the practice. I handle the issue by using âabtâ followed by the baptism year when only the baptism date is given for children in historical records and it appears that was the practice of the time. I really would prefer not to see alerts related to birth and baptism dates.
Nkess, thank you for your suggestion which certainly works but, as I think you imply, it is a workaround solution for now.
Mscheffler, Iâm a little surprised you find my feature request to be âoddâ . Using the Problem Options route I have proposed has two obvious and immediate benefits (for me anyway) : (1) it opens the door to further investigation by allowing the problem to be easily added to the Tasks List for follow-up, and (2) if you subsequently decide it is not actually a problem after all, you can transfer the personâs name to the Not A Problem List â and there it will stay, parked out of the way.
You say you âwould prefer not to see alerts related to birth and baptism datesâ, my proposed feature is an option you can choose to use â or not. It would be entirely up to you; no different to any of the other checks accessible from the Problem List menu item.
As you say, baptism after birth was an historical practice, but others have also rightly pointed out that was not always the case. To me (and Iâm sure to other RM users), working out a correct date of birth can be hugely significant. In my original post I mentioned my 8x great grandmother and the four year difference between the two different dates I have for her arrival into the world. Perhaps I should also have mentioned I know for certain the year of her marriage. Working back from that date, I really would like to know if she was eighteen years old when she married â or just fourteen !!! Relying on âabtâ â give or take several years â doesnât really cut the mustard.
The reality of feature requests is that some may become implemented, on merit, regardless of feedback from others⌠while some may require supporting feedback from enough users to merit a return on investment by the authors, and the last bucket is future indeterminant.
