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

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

On 9/9/2015 2:33 PM, 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? John, The short is no, you cannot make both the Birth and Baptism tag primary as long as you are using the standard Baptism Tag, which is in the Birth Group. Only one Tag in that group can be made Primary for each person. But that's no reason both can't print in reports, unless you are talking about on of the very brief chart formats. Just uncheck "Primary Tags only" in the Report Definition. Terry Reigel

I just made a custom tag.  Having lots of French ancestors, I need both from the church. From: John and Lee Wood via <tmg@rootsweb.com> To: TMG <TMG@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2015 2:33 PM Subject: [TMG] Birth and Baptism Tags Marked as Primary 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