Family Historian User Group

Hi guys,
I am entering a number of 18th century CMBs and I have found several common christian name baptisms, e.g. Mary Gingell bap. 1753, that may or may not be one of a number of grooms/brides of the same name that I have already entered for later dates e.g. Mary Gingell marr. 1770. Until things are clearer, should I enter the baptisms as new children of the named parents (feels safest) or make a speculative link (perhaps for later adjustment) to the brides/grooms I have already entered? Please can I have advice as to what is best practice with this?
Thanks very much for your help.

Keep them separate.

If you enter them as one, with warnings in notes, you will, if your memory is anything like mine, forget the warning-notes.

if you enter them as two, you can use the "All" tab to enter an association saying that these are potentially the same person. Unfortunately, you need to enter the same thing on both records. You need to add the associated person plus a value for relationship - I enter "possible duplicate" for that.

If proof comes one way or the other, it seems easier to merge two individuals than split one.

I will answer in the reverse order but from the opposite standpoint.

should I ... make a speculative link (perhaps for later adjustment) to the brides/grooms I have already entered?

That is a value judgement that depends on how certain you feel about the relationship.
On balance it is probably better to make the link, but with caveats in the Note fields of the Marriage Event, Baptism Event, or Source Records.
It sounds as if there are few Facts for the Individual so splitting one Individual Record into two, if the need later arises, would not be difficult.

Otherwise, how do you record the tentative relationship? The only option is the Associated Person link.
But taking Adrian's argument, how do you remember/notice that the link exists hidden on the All tab?
There is a fhugdownloads:contents:property_box_tabs_associated_persons|> Property Box Tabs: Associated Persons download that avoids using the All tab and makes such associations more visible.

should I enter the baptisms as new children of the named parents?

The parents should be linked to the children whether new or existing Individuals.
Create all the usual Source Citations to the Baptism record, for which I would strongly recommend using ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources that as a newcomer you may not have discovered yet.

ancestralsources:index|> Ancestral Sources can also be used to capture your Marriage Records and Census Records.
There is also a Plugin that launches AS from FH.

Thanks very much to Adrian and Mike for clear and helpful replies. I will probably keep them separate and look at that Associated Persons download. And thanks, I have got AS but didn't know about the plug-in so I shall get that too...
Steph

Mike - Downloads of your "tatewise" AS Plug-in and Assoc. tab completed successfully thanks.
Steph Woods