* FH Estimated Age when no Birth Date

[stewartrb]

I have two individuals, husband and wife. I have his baptism date, but I haven't found her birth or baptism record yet and have provided a circa date.

Adriaen Schamp, Bapt'd: 26 Dec 1749
Rebecca Huff, Born: c. 1753

In the Focus Window Married block, I also have a circa date. circa 1769 and the helpful (ages: ).

In this case, however, I get (ages: ? & 15-16).

That's helpful because I didn't have to do much mental math to see I, or my source, probably gave her a birth date too late. And I now know I need to look earlier in the records.

But his age is ?. Granted it's only a Baptism to go on, but I should at least get a "~20" or something. I think it would be far more helpful to see a ~date than a ?.

Both on the Focus Window and the Property Sheet Facts Tab.

[tatewise]

I think that is a good idea.
(I suspect in penultimate paragraph where you say ~date you mean ~age i.e. estimated age.)

This is related to the =EstimatedAgeAt(...) function that could be used to provide the estimated age.

[mjashby]

As far as I am aware the program calculation of 'age at event date' only works from a recorded birth event, either actual or 'estimated'. Any other option would require the programming of 'if then else variants' to included calculation based on baptism or christening dates, which I presume Calico Pie has decided not to program in (yet).

Personally, I always apply either approximate or estimated dates of birth based on other events, so don't experience the same problem and can use those dates to determine whether or not other event dates appear reasonable/realistic. You may not, of course, consider estimated birth dates as acceptable, but I find them as acceptable as others do of recording an approximate date of marriage or of any other event when no evidence has yet been found that that event ever took place.

Mervyn

[tatewise]

Mervyn, our postings probably overlapped, but FH does calculate estimated Age, Birth, and Death using clever logic.

See the functions =EstimatedAgeAt(...) and =EstimatedBirthDate(...) and =EstimatedDeathDate(...) that look at many events in many relatives to compute an answer. So would be relatively easy to add an estimated Age.

[BillH]

Just a thought. Doesn't this imply that the child is baptized shortly after birth? I have many people in my database that were not baptized until they were in the teens or 20's. My wife wasn't baptized until she was in her 50's. In Norway in the 1700's and 1800's it wasn't uncommon for a child to be 2 or 3 years old before they were able to make it to the parish to be baptized.

If I think the child was born shortly before baptism, then I would put in an approximate birth date so the age can be calculated from that.

Bill

[tatewise]

Yes, that is why it is only estimated and I suspect other Events may make further adjustments.
When there is nothing else in the database to go on, it is better than nothing.
Some of my Plugins such as Lookup Missing Census Facts rely on such estimates.
Perhaps, adult baptisms should use standard event Christening (adult) which I suspect is not used in estimations?
But if you know how old they were then presumably you enter a Birth Event and that trumps everything else.

[BillH]

Mike,
At least for me the Christening (Adult) fact wouldn't be satisfactory. For my folks the religious term for their event is not called a Christening, it is called a Baptism and that is the term I would want to use.

Calico Pie,
I would hate to see estimated ages based on the baptism in the focus window and property box. Too many folks weren't baptized at birth. Please, if this is added to FH, make it optional.

Bill

[tatewise]

Yes, I would expect it to be optional anyway, although the ~ prefix shows it is estimated and can thus be ignored.
However, if you know folks weren't baptized at birth then don't you enter a Birth event that trumps the Baptised event?

[BillH]

Mike,

Yes... if I know it. Often if people were baptized as adults, I have no idea how old they were at the time so I don't have any idea of the birth date. That is the problem of using estimated ages based on baptism date. For example, if I didn't know my wife's birth date and used her baptism date to estimate ages on then she would have retired from work when she was 7. Wouldn't that be nice.

I think it is actually easier to put in an "estimated" date of some kind if a person is known to have been baptized near birth. If I had a baptism date of 1/1/1950 then I would put in an "estimated date for birth of one of these:

bef 1/1/1950
c. 1/1/1950
c. 1950
btw 1947 and 1950

Bill

[tatewise]

OK, I have had another idea that offers a compromise/workaround.

Assuming that Christening (Adult) does not contribute to FH estimations, but you are not keen on the term 'Christening', then use Tools > Fact Types, select the Christening (Adult) event and use Edit to change the fact as follows:
Label to Baptism (Adult)
Abbreviation to Baptised
Sentence Template to {individual} was baptised {date} {place} {age}
or whatever wording you prefer.
In Gedcom it will still use the CHRA standard tag, but in all displays, reports, etc, will use Baptised.

[BillH]

Mike,

I really appreciate your efforts to come up with a solution, but for me I think the solution is really to just continue to use Baptism as the fact and to not estimate ages based on the baptism date.

I think it is confusing to use the Adult Christening fact for baptism when I may or may not know if it was in fact an adult baptism. If all I have is the baptism date, I won't know if the person is a child or an adult at the time.

Also, while FH can be tailored to use the baptism wording on the adult christening fact, if I export my tree to Ancestry or to another program or if I send my gedcom to someone else, it will appear as a christening, which it really isn't. As long as Simon makes the estimating of ages based on baptism date an optional feature, I am fine with the way it is now.

Bill

[ColeValleyGirl]

Unless this is definitely optional (and easy to turn off) I think it's a very bad idea, as it's based on a set of assumptions about families that are*not* universally applicable, and introduces data not supported by sources.

My criteria for how acceptable it is are:

• does it generate a GEDcom based on actual sources rather than calculations/estimates/bowdlerisation (i.e. it mustn't introduce a 'fact' I haven't entered, or modify one I have entered, or require me to modify a fact (so no changing Baptism to Adult Christening)

• Can I turn off the calculation of 'wrong' dates -- i.e. can I stop it calculating misleading birth dates that aren't explicitly supported by source(s)

• It doesn't require me to work out if an estimated date is rubbish -- some estimated dates marked ~ are worth considering but birth dates estimated from baptisms are (in my family) not remotely useful

[tatewise]

Fundamentally it is similar to the Ages already shown in (parentheses) in Facts tab, Reports, etc, and in Focus Window without parentheses!

It is a display only option with no impact on Gedcom or Facts.

There are no Dates as such actually being created or saved.

Only Ages displayed with a leading tilde ~ to indicate they are estimates, and I would expect a range of Ages depending on the Min & Max estimated Birth dates. So (~23-28) would indicate an estimate age range.

There should be an overall enable/disable in Tools > Preferences, but specific Ages would not be enabled/disabled any more than current Ages in (parentheses) that may be derived from unsourced Birth Date facts.

[BillH]

Mike,

I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but I don't think they are fundamentally the same thing. Currently the estimated dates are based on a birth date specified by me. It may be an estimate, but I wouldn't put it in if it wasn't at least somewhat known and backed up by a source. With estimated ages based on baptism it is a complete crap shoot. If I have no idea when the person was born then estimating the age from the baptism would be very misleading. I know it is just shown in program and not put into the gedcom, but I don't want such meaningless dates being displayed at all. It could be very confusing. Again, using my wife as an example, if the estimated ages were based on her baptism date then she would have been married when she was -23 years old.

Bill

[ColeValleyGirl]

I'm with Bill -- if there's an estimated birth date based on an age at an event, OK. But if a baptism doesn't have an age *and* a date, it shouldn't be used to estimate a birth date.

[tatewise]

I think we have all agreed that the option can be disabled, so that satisfies all who don't want it. Just like MyHeritage hints, don't switch it on.

There also seems to be a hang up on Baptism, but that is not all that the estimate is based on. FH takes into account many more events, and other factors than that, and not just from the Individual, but from relative's events too. If for example the Individual was Married, especially if that event had an Age, or their mother died young, then those would affect the estimated Birth date. See Tools > Preferences> Estimates note at top.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mike, refresh my memory -- do the Focus window and Property sheet display estimated dates produced by FH now (as opposed to calculated dates, or estimated dates entered by the user)?

If they don't then this request is asking for 2 changes:

1. To display ages estimated by FH as well as calculated or estimated ages determined by the user (priority (I assume): absolute > calculated > estimated entered by user > estimated by FH)
2. To include baptism dates in the estimation algorithm, even if the age at baptism isn't known or determinable except by a set of assumptions that likely aren't generic.

It could be useful to some people's way of working to routinely see estimated ages if calculated ages or their own estimations aren't available. I wouldn't want to stop anyone else working this way, even though it's not useful to me, as I don't ever want to see any data I haven't entered explicitly (as an absolute value, an estimate or a calculation) unless I specifically ask for it in a query.

There is value in estimated dates when determining a records search to perform, but if I see an estimated value when viewing my basic data I want to be sure that it's an estimate I've made based on my knowledge of the family/individuals, and not one that FH has made for me. Hence, it must (as you've already said) absolutely be optional whether estimated dates/resultant ages *calculated by FH* are displayed. (Estimated dates/ages calculated by a user should be handled as now).

With respect to including baptism dates in the estimation, I'm at a loss to see how this would work. In different branches of my own family, I have 'infant baptisers' (Church of England folk who baptised their children within a week or so of birth); 'batch baptisers' (who saved the kids up and did 3 or 4 at once often when the youngest was a few months old but the oldest might be in their teens); 'multiple baptisers' (who did the same kid more than once, either because the first baptism had been a private one, or they'd forgotten if one of the kids had been done already and dipped them again for safety/because they'd moved church and were required to by the incumbent/because an individual wanted to be married in church and couldn't prove they'd been baptised already elsewhere) and 'adult baptisers' (like my Welsh ancestors who didn't believe in infant baptism but waited until an individual could choose -- this also includes some 'multiple adult baptisers', like the Welsh female ancestor who was baptised by the Baptist church as an adult, and then baptised again as an adult in the Church of Wales as an adult so that she could marry when the local Parish Church was the only option and the incumbent was a sticker for the rules).

Even if FH provides an option to include baptism dates in the life-date estimation algorithm, I quail to think how they'd program it. I'd certainly need different algorithms for different branches of the family...

[tatewise]

No FH does not display dates estimated by FH anywhere I can think of.

1. Yes, estimated Ages by FH would be lowest priority, and only apply where currently no Age is shown due to lack of a Birth Date.
2. The existing function =EstimatedAgeAt(...) algorithm could be used, which is presumably also used in function =EstimatedBirthDate(...), so no change necessary.

FH is not entirely open about its estimation algorithm, but it has already been programmed. See the Help for the above two functions. An actual Birth Date takes top priority.

By trial and error the algorithm clearly takes account of Baptism, Christening, and even Christening (adult)! and uses the earliest event Date from them.

A Child with Birth Date earlier than Baptism or Christening is ignored, but is applied if earlier than Christening (adult) and the algorithm subtracts 41 from Child's Birth Date to arrive at estimated Birth Date. The 41 is derived from Tools > Preferences > Estimates for Father's age at childbirth i.e. (Maximum + Minimum) / 2 = (70 + 12) / 2 = 41 for default settings.

Note that an estimated Birth Date is often produced even if the person has no facts at all, by examining the events of relatives and sometimes using Tools > Preferences > Estimates.

[ColeValleyGirl]

If Estimated Ages already take baptism into account in some mysterious way, then this wish list request is wrongly titled -- it should be a request to:

1. display dates estimated by FH when dates entered by the user are not available (using the estimation algorithm already in existence, so there is at least some sort of consistency)
2. everywhere (I assume) that user-entered dates are displayed
3. with an indicator that these are 'FH dates' and not user-entered dates (differentiating between user-estimated and FH-estimated)
4. with the option to display (and the default not to display -- i.e. behaviour as now)

[tatewise]

I am in general agreement, but only if the word 'dates' is changed to 'ages' in most cases in your posting.
i.e.
1. display ages estimated by FH when a Birth date entered by the user is not available (using the estimation algorithm already in existence, so there is at least some sort of consistency)
2. everywhere (I assume) that ages are currently displayed, where otherwise no age would be displayed
3. with an indicator that these are 'FH estimated ages' not derived from a user-entered Birth date (differentiating between user-estimated and FH-estimated)
4. with the option to display (and the default not to display -- i.e. behaviour as now with no age shown when no Birth date)

I propose a revised posting title of FH Estimated Age when no Birth Date.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mike, fairy snuff. With the caveat that everywhere an alternative date to birth date would have been displayed, the status quo remains (I have a vague memory of sometimes seeing baptism dates when there's no birth date although I can't find an example right now).

[tatewise]

Not sure I understand your caveat.

The only place I can think of where Baptism or Christening dates are shown when there is no Birth date is the Focus Window (and possibly in Diagrams with some Text Schemes?)

But that is the case the original poster was talking about, that despite the substitute dates there is no Age shown.

[ColeValleyGirl]

I don't use diagrams, so it can't be that... (yes, I know, I'm an outlier but my mind works in text not pictures or sound -- same reason I can't listen to podcasts or talking radio or webcasts or watch most TV... I digress).

But if Baptism or Christening dates are already shown in the focus window, they should continue to be shown as default instead of estimated ages (with the option under discussion to show estimated ages).

[tatewise]

That is the problem the original poster is complaining about.

Keep a clear distinction between displayed Dates and displayed Ages.

When a Baptism or Christening event is shown in the Focus Window in lieu of a Birth event (or when there is no such events at all) then the Marriage Age is shown as ?. The same goes for the Facts tab, where there may be a Baptism or Christening event, but no Birth event, and none of the Facts have an Age shown except where explicitly recorded in the Fact.

Just because a Baptism or Christening event is shown does not guarantee that an FH estimated Age is necessarily derived from that event as there may be other factors affecting the estimated Age, as discussed at length earlier regarding the unspecified FH algorithm.

So as I said, the FH estimated Age is shown only where no other Age would have been shown, and clearly indicated as such.

[LornaCraig]

The only place I can think of where Baptism or Christening dates are shown when there is no Birth date is the Focus Window (and possibly in Diagrams with some Text Schemes?).

They are also shown in the Records Window. Similarly, Burial dates are displayed there if no death date exists.