Why is the baptismal date of Frances Major not accepted as her birth date?Comments on Frances (Major) Lea

Question

On 12 Nov 2020 Mary Gresham wrote on Major-49:

What in the heck are you saying? No one wants to give up the glamorous George Major line, but facts are facts. I have been at this since the 70's and those old genealogies are like a sieve. The Lea/Leigh/Lee lines are a nightmare to unravel. I can actually remember the discussion about Frances not being a daughter of George but not knowing where to put her. WIKI is about sources and facts and unraveling these old family myths that have been carried along for years. A baptismal date is used frequently as the birth date and it is certainly better than nothing at all.

Comments

Hi Mary, I've added a couple of extra tags to your question.  You might also like to edit it to perhaps ask people to read the comments on the profile before replying to this G2G.

Answer 1

The baptism date is normally not the birth date, only in a few cases that happened on the same day (mostly emergeny baptism).

To solve the problem:

You enter the baptism date and click the radio button just beneath, which says 'before'. That's all you can do. (Because, after all, he had to be born before he could be baptised.)

See also:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Christening%2C_Baptism%2C_and_Burial_Fields

Comments

The problem with this "solution" is that the deficient WikiTree system doesn't see dates, only years, so it will then list the date as the year previous to the baptism, when the actual birthdate is more likely earlier in the month.

Using the baptismal date is probably in more cases than not, closer to the real birthdate.

In many pre-1700 profiles, the baptism date is the date we have and birth dates aren't going to be found.

Better it would be to add another radio button that says "baptismal date" instead of birth date.

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For the idea adding a baptism date see that discussion:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/915810/suggestion-baptism-burial-selection-options-birth-death-field?show=915810#q915810

Answer 2

Sometimes a family had multiple children baptised on the same day, so marking it ‘before’ is much better.

Answer 3

Marking 'before' the baptism date is not necessarily correct if one were to be technical rather one can infer that it was 'on or before.'  Unfortunately, that is not an option so one would be technically correct only by filling in the next day's date and selecting 'before.'  For the record, I DO NOT do that.  I do exactly as others suggest by using the baptismal date and marking it 'before'.

I can also offer these thoughts:

1) The proximity of the birth to the baptism has always been a cultural thing with the geography and the era being factors.  Mid-19th century baptisms were mostly within a day or two of birth and I have seen so many that were the same day that one would would not likely conclude these were 'emergency baptism.'

2) On the other extreme, I  have seen octogenarians being baptized.or entire families being baptized the same day.  These were usually related to conversion from one faith to another.

3) Sometimes, the 'official' civil date of birth is AFTER the baptism date.  In these cases,  the date of birth was almost invariable misrepresented by the parents in order to avoid a fine for not reporting the birth within the period proscribed by law.  

4) A similar problem exists for burial dates.  One would certainly hope that the burial was after death (though not always the case, which is why we have the term 'dead ringer').  It is typically safe to assume that the burial was within a few days of death although there are certainly cases where a body had been lost for a long time and then buried after being discovered.