Christening or Baptism

[Roz7380 0]

I am adding in parish records from the end of the 18th and start of the 19th centuries - they are baptisms that have taken place at St Margaret Church, Rochester Kent.

 

Some of the records don't have dates of birth - i know in some software, you add the baptism date as a christening instead and it was act as a date of birth.

 

Is that the same for TMG? or can I add it in as a baptism

 

Roz

[Helmut Leininger 0]

I always do add a birth record, eventually with the same date as the baptism if only one date is in the record. This may or may not be a correct birth date - you don't know. Doing it this way, I bypass any compatibility problems.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Hi Roz,

 

TMG lets you enter it whichever way you want, it is your choice. By default both the standard TMG Baptism and Christening tag types are in the "Birth" group along with the standard Birth tag type. That means if you only enter a Baptism or Christening tag for a person and no Birth tag, then the date of that Baptism or Christening tag will be used by TMG as that person's birth date. But if you enter multiple tags all of which are in the "Birth" group (e.g. both a Birth and a Baptism tag), whichever tag you designate as Primary will be used as that person's birth date. So, for example, you could enter a "possible" earlier Birth tag as well as a later Baptism tag. Both tags will output their sentence text in a narrative. But if you mark the Baptism instead of the Birth as Primary, then TMG will use the Baptism date as the birth date for any output which gives their lifespan.

 

Finally, you could create a custom "Baptism-Other" tag type in the "Other" group. Then if you only entered one of those custom tags and did not enter any tag in the "Birth" group (i.e. no Birth or Baptism), the narrative would output that custom Baptism information with its date, but TMG would have no assumed date for a birth date, and any output of lifespan would not have a "begin" date.

 

You can get whatever output you prefer. Hope this gives you ideas,