The GEDCOMGEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software. It is a file format that most genealogical programs and online trees recognise. Standard supports both Baptism and Christening and so does Family Historian, additionally it also may show both the Baptism and Christening fields on the detail tab of the Property BoxThe Property Box is the primary window for data entry and for viewing details of stored records. It is used with records of all types. Dialogue, and this can lead to some confusion as to which to use.
Officially
- Christening is the giving of a name and being admitted to the Christian Church.
- It is often done by baptism, which is the religious rite of immersing or sprinkling with water.
In many cases a Christening is done soon after birth, but baptism can be done at any time, if not done during a Christening.
How “official” this view is remains subject to challenge. The major Christian denominations hold theologically that admission to the Christian Church takes placeAccording to GEDCOM, a Place should hold "The jurisdictional name of the place where the event took place…" through Baptism. The difference is semantic. Etymology shows that to become a Christian is to be “Christ’ened”. It is admitted that separate eventsEvents are things that happened to an Individual and Attributes are things that described them. can be found for the same individual, and this defies mainstream theological explanation. It is better, therefore, to record either as an event according to what is recorded at sourceSource: "where information was found". This could be anything from an archive in a county records office, a book, or even a relative's recorded recollection. Citing your Sources helps to show how you reached a particular conclusion about an Individual..
Usage in Family Historian
For simplicity sake it’s generally easier to use one or the other in your family history file, many people decide to use baptism, however you will find people using christening and it’s up to you as to whether, when you receive a file from somebody else you change.
Since FH V5 the easiest way to change a file you have received to baptism is to use the Change Any Fact Tag pluginPlugins are small programs that allow new features to be added without upgrading Family Historian itself; some plugins are written by Calico Pie and others are written by users..
Prior to FH V5 the only quick way to change a file you have received to baptism was to use a text editor to replace 1 CHR with 1 BAPM. It is important if you decide to do this, to use the search and replace utility, which will match on case and ideally be able to find them only at the front of a line. A text editor such as PSPad or TextPad is suitable.
Another option is to use GedPad that will allow search and replace of data in a GEDCOM file and has an understanding of the GEDCOM Standard to avoid any errors.