Birth and baptism, registration after baptism

+5 votes
193 views
I have yet again aquestion on birth and baptism dates. This concerns the profile of Hamers-191.

Usually I prefer to enter the birth registration dates in the birth date field but now I have a baptism that is actually earlier than the registration. For the moment I have entered the baptism in the birth date field. I still marked it about and in the biography made an explanation about the existence of a different date in the registration and included of course both references.

More serious is that the actual spelling of the LNAB in both records was different. My question:

Is it already formalised if the older record in such a case takes precedence or is it the record of the civil registration. For first names this is also interesting because the baptism record uses Dutch/Latin names an the civil registration was written in the French language (with the French versions of the first names).

I took now the position that the oldest document takes precedence. This can become complicated if not all records are of the same level (i.e. one of the records is a secondary source).

What is the policy or do you agree with my line of thinking?
WikiTree profile: Jean Guilleaume Haemers
in Policy and Style by Charles Hensgens G2G6 (9.5k points)

Enter the birth date not birth registration date. 

These may be the same day, or the registration a day or so later. I have occasionally seen registration dates much later, years, in which case I will consider that the birth date could be in error, and I look for confirmation in other documents.

2 Answers

+6 votes
 
Best answer

An error in transcription. The birth registration date is 28 nivose 8, french revolutionary calender. That translates to 18 januari. Via familysearch:

"Netherlands, Limburg Province, Civil Registration, 1792-1963," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939F-139M-LN?cc=2026214&wc=2KCZ-MNP%3A343396501%2C343445501 : 25 May 2021), Simpelveld > Geboorten, huwelijken, overlijden 1796-1806 Tienjarige tafels 1796-1842 > image 252 of 467; Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg, Maastricht (Limburg Regional History Center, Maastricht).

by W Koster G2G6 Mach 2 (20.8k points)
selected by Living Terink

And not just the registration date, but also the actual birth, the mother:

est accouchie aujourdhui le vingt huit nivose a un heures a minuit

gave birth today on the twenty-eight nivose at midnight one o'clock

De moraal van dit verhaal: Always consult the originals. Especially when sources conflict.

+5 votes
Generally Dutch birth and death records start by saying the registration date. The actual date is somewhere in the text. I've seen in multiple occasions that only the registration date is indexed, probably because that's the easiest to see.

Other websites that use those indexes from the archives, like WieWasWie and FamilySearch, will than falsely fill in the registration date as a birth date, by lack of an alternative. So you should always watch out whether you've found the actual birth date or the registration date (which is often within a few dates after birth).

And of course the WikiTree birth date field is for the actual birth date, not the registration date.
by Koen van Hoof G2G6 Mach 7 (73.5k points)

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