Chances are you've never spent much time among some of the Protestant groups that practice "full immersion" baptism.
For many of these groups, baptism takes place when a person reaches an age of reason - when they can make a choice to follow in the ways of their religion. A Christening, on the other hand, is performed on infants, when they are named, anointed with water or oil, and essentially placed under the protection of their God until such time as the child is of an age to make a choice. Among Catholics and "infant baptism" Protestant groups, the baptism and christening are sort of the same thing - and confirmation is where the choice at the age of reason is made. This is one reason why it is important to track religions when doing genealogy - you'll find different church records for your Episcopal cousin than you will for your AME cousin and your Southern Baptist cousin and so on. There are regional differences as well. Most groups have some sort of presence on the web explaining how they view these questions - and often a polite request to a minister in the area may result in an explanation of the local practices. (They might also put you in touch with one or two of the old timers in the area who have vivid memories of how it used to be done...sometimes it is worth an hour or two to visit with these folks, even if they aren't in your direct line.) Cheers, and good hunting... -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of T. R. Valentine Sent: Monday, 31 January, 2005 16:17 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Christening- at what point is it probably unlikely? On Monday January 31 2005 11:54 AM Paula Ryburn wrote: > And if it's really baptism, instead of christening, there's a > very good chance it didn't happen until they were adult, > depending on enomination. --Paula According to the dictionary, 'christen' means 'to baptise'. Legacy allows the user to pick 'Christening' or 'Baptism' as the preferred terminology for the same thing. I've never heard 'christening' used to refer to anything but a baptism -- except when naming a ship. T. R. Valentine Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
