Distinguishing between birth and baptism records

leck

I haven't used familysearch.org for a long time, but just trying it out today to look up some records.

A lot of my searches are bringing me to the collection "Ireland Births and Baptisms 1620-1881". Would I be right in thinking that these are mostly baptism records? When searching on ancestry, I always presume that the records I find in Select Births and Baptisms are baptism records.

This is one example of a search result:

Other information in the record of Bridget Fitzpatrick from Ireland Births and Baptisms
Name: Bridget Fitzpatrick
Gender: Female
Christening Place: CLANMORRIS, MAYO, IRE
Birth Date: 03 Jul 1874
Birthplace: Clanmorris, Mayo, Ire
Father's Name: Thomas Fitzpatrick
Mother's Name: Ellen Corless

Link: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FPBX-J7R.

Although it says Christening Place, the date is listed as a Birth Date, but maybe they use the same field for birth and christening?

pinkypinky

Some of the records in that particular database are extracted from civil records. The one above looks like an extract to me.

Coolnabacky1873

Almost all records on Familysearch come from microfilms at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The citation under the record abstract contains the film number, in this case 255911

Search the catalog by film/fiche number and it leads you to the microfilm:

https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/452818?availability=Family%20History%20Library

shanew

that's an extracted civil birth record, the 'christening' date and/or place captions on these are not correct. The 192 mentioned as part of the reference is the page number - see the corresponding index record https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FBMJ-WPK

also, you sometimes see 'father's place of birth' as a caption on these, which is also incorrect, it's really father's place of residence

leck

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

Almost all records on Familysearch come from microfilms at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The citation under the record abstract contains the film number, in this case 255911

Search the catalog by film/fiche number and it leads you to the microfilm:

https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/452818?availability=Family%20History%20Library

Thanks. Do you mention searching by film number to show me the source or is there any advantage to me of finding a record, the clicking on the link for the film number and searching there again?

I suppose there will be times when the FHL film number might come up in searches on ancestry and I can then use that to find the record on the familysearch site.

I think I've made a lot of mistakes with recording births as baptisms and vice versa. If one finds a baptism date that is earlier than the civil birth record for the same person, do you record them as they are listed or do you add a notation saying that the birth precedes the date of baptism?

Coolnabacky1873

leck wrote: »

Thanks. Do you mention searching by film number to show me the source or is there any advantage to me of finding a record, the clicking on the link for the film number and searching there again?

I suppose there will be times when the FHL film number might come up in searches on ancestry and I can then use that to find the record on the familysearch site.

I think I've made a lot of mistakes with recording births as baptisms and vice versa. If one finds a baptism date that is earlier than the civil birth record for the same person, do you record them as they are listed or do you add a notation saying that the birth precedes the date of baptism?

It's just a useful way to find the source for records in databases with ambiguous titles, such as that one. But, you should also use the film number in the citation you create for Familysearch records.

If possible, always try ang get a copy/scan/pic of the original record as transcriptions are prone to error, like the one highlighed above.