Hi all
There has been a discussion about different uses of CHR and BAPM in gramps rf. Moving events from christening to baptism.
I don’t want to open that discussion again, but ask if it is intended to change the recording standard when recording “Taufe” to be changed to “Taufe” = Christening instead “Taufe” = Baptism, perhaps by applying an option?
I know that I can change all BAPM events to CHR using the tool. The disadvantage would be that I would have to choose event-Religion-Christening which is rather inconveniant on data entry.
Perhaps alternatively there could be an option to choose change BAPM to CHR on gedcom export.
cheers
Uli
I have started to post several times only to delete my drafts.
I spent a little time on Google translate running the three terms; Baptism, Christening and Taufe, through the translator. And while in English there is a nuanced difference between Baptism and Christening, in German, they mean exactly the same.
One idea I had was to hack the code to eliminate one of the type options leaving just one type Taufe. But thinking about how embedded the two terms are in the code, it would be a losing endeavor.
The only other thought I had was to set the translation of one of the terms to something like “XX-Taufe” leaving just one Taufe available to use. But there would probably be a years long debate between German speakers/users about which term would in fact be commented out.
A question, are there times when you set Taufe using the version under Life Events (Baptism), versus the Taufe under the Religious (Christening)? Or are you just selecting one so that your entries are consistent?
Hi Dave
Thanks for your answer.
I constantly use Taufe which is under life events and translates to BAPM in gedcom export. The subject came up when using tng as well which uses CHR tag and talking to German tng users who constantly use CHR. Mostly they adress the event when babies are given their name in an chritian ceremony in church.
Perhaps the easiest way to handle will be to continue and tweak the gedcom export.
We are working on transcribing a parish book in a team, so we use tng as it allows all members to access and work together on the web.
Cheers
Uli
In French Baptism an Christening both are translated into Baptême. I’ve asked Google Translate what Taufe means but it’ve returned no answer. These threads are totally lunar for me 
I was also puzzled by the subtle nuances between Christening and Baptism. So, I searched the internet, looking primarily to Church of England argumentation.
Globally, from a religious point of view, they have the same outcome: an incumbent is received among a church. It appears that preference for one term vs. the other seems to be closely related to the specific Christian denomination. Even Church of England considers they are equivalent and wording can be different across parishes due to historical local usage.
The ambiguity is worsened when it comes to translation. As @PLegoux and @uli22 point out, there is a single word in other languages, e.g. Baptême in French, Taufe in German.
IMHO, since there is non one-to-one correspondence between languages and cultures, this can be solved only with the implementation of a new concept in types (not only event type names because it can be useful with other object types): a hierarchical structure.
In such a tree-like architecture, like menus with sub-menus, we could have:
Religious events -+- Baptism -+- (CoE) Christening
| +- (CoE) Baptism
| |
| + (Cath) Baptism
| |
| + (Orth) Baptism
|
+- Marriage -+- …
If the Christian denomination is known, the event type is chosen from level 3; otherwise the generic term at level 2 is used. Generic term can be translated while specific term can’t always be.
Of course, search implementation must take this structure into account so that query for “Baptism” also returns '(xx) yy" and perhaps similarly query for “(xx) yy” could return “Baptism” if there is no such event type in the record but the ancestor generic term is present (may need a boolean for fuzzy search versus exact search).
Translation is very difficult when it comes to terms so much entangled in local culture. I personally consider they should not be translated blindly. Only the generic terms can. My idea of “hierarchical type names” is to always have a fallback “universal” word for the concept while lower branches allow to describe more specifically what is at stake.
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To cloud the waters further (hah!), keep in mind that some denominations are big on adult baptism:
It would feel wrong to record such an event in Gramps as a “Christening”.
Craig
(That picture has a weirdly homo-erotic vibe, doesn’t it?)
If that is the problem, then maybe the focus of this discussion should be on the UI design?
Is Gramps Web an option, instead of TNG? (I haven’t used it, so I don’t know if it solves the data entry problem.)
For example, currently the first event I enter for a person defaults to Birth, the second defaults to Death. What if I could create different workflows having different lists of ordered default events? Then one of them could be Birth, Baptism, etc.
I don’t understand the importantance of this discussion. If the record I’m citing says Baptism that is how I record it, if it says Christening that is how it is recorded. How does it make any difference in the tree that I’m building?
@Davesellers
You’re right: if the record says Baptism, this is baptism; if it says Christening, it is christening.
The problem stems for ourselves who aren’t English-speaking natives. These built-in types must be translated into our own language. But then there is no strict equivalence to the English type. Reciprocally, how do we export Baptême or Taufe to GEDCOM? Which GEDCOM type to choose? Once again GEDCOM is English-based.
You know the proverb Traduttore, traditore. It is next to impossible to translate with a high degree of fidelity such abstract notion linked to local culture. You start from Baptism/Christening which is meaningful in some English-speaking Christian denomination and you must coerce the concept (because of GEDCOM) onto something different for another Christian denomination in a different country/language.
The problem is not in how to copy English-written records, but on how to use Gramps in another culture/language without messing up all the export features or even built-in filters and algorithms.
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Yes, translations can be problematic. If Baptism and Christening basically translate to the same thing in your language, I would pick the equivalent of Baptism just because it is at the top of the drop down list and slightly easier to select. I would ignore the Christening type. I admit I don’t know how the translations would be affected going through a gedcom onto another site. However if you use the same type all the time a global edit to change it to the required wording in the language should be simpler.
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