Even in the churches that baptized infants, that baptism date does not always come soon after birth. Think of the cases of colonists who lived far from churches, towns, and ministers. I found one family in which the wife and four children were all baptized on the same day, and had been taken to town at considerable inconvenience for the very purpose of having them baptized. ....Betty On 9/9/2015 3:27 PM, Rick Van Dusen via wrote: > Notice there are essentially two different kinds of baptism, and IMO > they deserve being treated differently in genealogy: > > Very common in Christianity is the infant baptism. Where this was common > practice (Roman Catholicism, most "Reformed" Protestant denominations, > Episcopal), it might have been the only record of a "new little one" > coming into the world. (Definitely the case with my Dutch Reformed > farmers in New York's Hudson-Mohawk area, where there were no land > records because of the Patroon System of feudalism, no government > records, and very few were prominent enough to make the newspapers.) > Thus, in these cases, a baptism is the nearest we'll ever get to a birth > record, and it's right to have a Baptism Tag Type in the Birth Group, as > the baptism is almost always within a week or two of the birth. > > However, those who practiced "believer baptism" did not leave us a > record from which we could infer birth. These denominations defined > baptism as an act which demonstrated one's willful commitment to God, > and therefore seldom occurred for a young child (five or older), let > alone an infant. IMO, these baptisms are a lot closer to, say, a > marriage in their value to the genealogist; they note a particular time > and place in a person's life, but not any predictable relationship to > BMD. For genealogists whose family has believer baptisms, seems to me a > different Tag Type is appropriate, one which is in the Other Group. > > Rick Van Dusen > > > > > On 9/9/2015 11:33 AM, John and Lee Wood via wrote: >> Is the any way to get both Birth and Baptism tags to be marked as >> Primary so that they both will print in reports? Most times it doesn't >> matter which one is Primary but, I have a situation where a person was >> born in 1702 but was baptized as a Baptist in 1785. He had been a >> Quaker, but was baptized as a Baptist and it is important to his history >> to have that noted in reports. Do I have to create a special tag for >> this one situation? >> >> Thanks for any suggestions. >> John Wood > The TMG archive is found here: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/TMG/ > Instructions on how to subscribe to TMG: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Software/TMG.html > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TMG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

I've heard of such events, but haven't seen any in my line. What I have a lot of is baptisms by circuit-riders, and other researchers who weren't up on that institution assumed these families moved around a lot (said assumption being debunked by Census and other records which put family in the same place for 100 years). I've seen, IIRC, one woman getting baptized as an adult, and this right before her wedding. I presume that had something to do with her status in the church where she wanted to get married and/or the church of her fiance. The difference, though, between infant-baptism traditions and Anabaptist is that with the Anabaptists one can't predict at all any connection between birth and baptism, whereas with the infant-baptism one can presume unless/until there's other evidence. In any case, though, a birthdate determined solely by baptism date is never more than a presumption. We stick with it, however, because it's often all we have or ever will get. The nice thing about TMG's Baptism-Tag-in-the-Birth-Group is that we can specify that all we have is the baptism and still have a "birth" date showing up instead of a blank. Rick Van Dusen On 9/9/2015 7:35 PM, Betty Clay wrote: > Even in the churches that baptized infants, that baptism date does not > always come soon after birth. Think of the cases of colonists who lived > far from churches, towns, and ministers. I found one family in which > the wife and four children were all baptized on the same day, and had > been taken to town at considerable inconvenience for the very purpose of > having them baptized. > > > ....Betty