Question

Is there a way for WikiTree to add the christening date and place to the birth spaces when submitting a GEDCOM that has christening dates and places rather than birth dates and places?  (Same for burials)

I've finally figured out this is why my GEDCOM compare list gives me very few suggestions and it's because the birth and death information places are left blank.  I’m working with records from England, Scotland and etc. and, as everyone knows, it’s rare to find actual birth information.  In my genealogy program I add the information to my records as a christening, burial and etc. since that's what the information is.  It’s the only way to keep records and sources pure.

Answer 1

Hello Penny,

I suspect that will never happen. Christning and burial dates simply are not birth or death dates. People christned in 1 location may have been born in a totally different place. Same goes for death and burial. Also people buried or christned in january of a certain year may have died or been born in the previous year. Since the whole idea of WikiTree is to provide accurate and documented information, it seems unlikely they will support substituting christning and burial data for birth and death data.

If I may suggest something to you: In my genealogy software I add in birth and death fields the data that can be derived form christning and burial information. So one Christned end of july 1804 would have been born in july 1804, one christned on january 1st 1760 would have been born in december 1759... That way years of death and birth will be imported into wikitree.

Kind regards

Sanne

Comments

That's a great idea for future additions to my software.  Right now I have 100's of people I would have to personally go in and change.  Would probably take me to long to change everything now.

Thanks, Penny

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Uhhhh, in Colonial America, many times children were ALL baptized at the same time when the family joined the local church. I have just completed adding 5 children to a family who all were baptized on the same day.

We don't have birth dates for them, just baptisms, but I put the Baptism date in the birth field and click the "Before this Date" button. Sometimes I have to go back and interpolate the birth date, but it is always before the Baptism date.

(Now someone can write in that the above technique is wrong....)

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I use a couple of different genealogy programs, as well as another website, all of them have fields for baptism and burial dates and places.

Answer 2

This is unlikely to happen anytime soon, if ever.

Click here for an explanation.

Comments

Ok..... I like your straight forward answer.... it made me chuckle !!!

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These data fields are something people request frequently but it seems that adding them now might cause bigger problems than it resolves. :(

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Hi Deb,

I can definately see the upside to having these data fields added.  Not just for the time it saves and the many duplicates WikiTree doesn't pick up, but for the sake of keeping the records pure and unaltered from what they really are.

Thanks again,

Penny

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I can see why the addition of fields to WikiTree is never going to happen - blinkered though the explanation may be.  But it wouldn't be difficult to amend GEDCOMpare so that if there's a baptism date but no birth date (as for most of the 2000+ matches I'm being asked to review) it adds the baptism date with "before" status in the birth field.  The same should apply if there's a burial date but no death date.
As it is, I'm not likely ever to import my data, & I guess many other European potential users are in the same position.  Maybe the American genealogists just aren't interested in getting the data about their European ancestors added to the tree...

(From a UK user with 3300+ entries in my GEDCOM)

Answer 3

Adding these dates into the wrong fields would create a lot of errors. Unfortunately there are no fields for baptism and burial, but this is something that many of us have requested. It is  awkward having to use the biography to have to make it clear that we are using evidence from baptism and burial records when the only data fields are for birth and death. A problem for everyone for everyone working with English profiles pre-1837 when we are using parish records. Many other countries also have the same problem for periods before introduction of civil registration.

Comments

Lynda, I totally agree.  One of the problems for me is that I'm OCD about getting my records and sources right :)  Thanks, Penny

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I sometimes wonder how many UK genealogists decide not to use Wikitree because there is nowhere to record these key data. I had serious doubts myself about whether to bother going on when I was first starting. I decided to stay, but it is still an irritation.

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Good point !!!!  I decided to stay since both mine and my husband's ancestors are a mix of deep US which leads to even deeper UK.  Plus, recent UK and Danish.  I too decided to stay :)

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Lynda, I use before the baptism date for the birth and before the burial date for the death. This is as close to the correct date as I can get. Sometimes there will be a census entry before the baptism takes place and I calculate the birth date from the census date.

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Yes, I think most of us do Rosemary, but it would still be preferable to have separate fields.

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Lynda, I've seen a lot of trees both on Ancestry and FamilySearch where Baptism/Christening dates are used as birth dates. The more experienced genealogist won't do that but there are a lot of people who do. All we can do is try to fix when we find them.

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Lynda Crackett - Count me as one.