Genealogy Chat

How can some family members over the census years be consistant each time to what year they were born, age and where they were born and others haven't got a clue, even without education at some point they must have known what year it was or even realised it was their birthday or was it a case of too many children and you were lucky to be alive or your parents died and someone else brought you up.

Well, it was a different world really - not as obsessive with exact records as we are now. My husband has a family of 10 children in his ancestry whose father was a railway worker so they were born all over the place. These birthplaces got moved around on various censuses!
A small difference can occur because of when the census was taken and when the birthday fell.
Also, if you were brought up in a certain place, you might not even realise you were born somewhere else!
jan

With birth registration not being compulsory until the 1870s, many people's birth would not have been registered, so many would not have known when they were born though some would have known their baptismal details.

That's true - further to what Joy has said, baptisms could take place several years after birth.
Jan

In the case of adults many either did not know their true age or even where exactly they were born. In other cases some "adjusted" their age so that males looked older than their wives or visa versa. Birthplaces were also sometimes "changed" so that the parish where they were currently living would not try to remove them should they fall on hard times.

Childrens ages on census records are usually more reliable particularly on the 1st census that they appear on.

I think it also depends on who filled out the form.
If I do it,it will be correct.
If my husband does it in my presence,it will be correct.
If my husband does it on his own then,"I got confused"!

Objection!! - Sexist (lol)

Sexist possibly, but so true!

Even as 'recently' as the 40's it was quite common for someone to give a local address so that the banns could be read and marriage take place in that parish - even thought they didn't live there.
Jill

I understand that in the 1841 census (the first national one) there were guide lines to round ages up or down, can't remember exactly. It would have been so much easier if in all the censuses they had been asked to give "year of birth" instead of "age"! probably too late to arrange for next year's!

In the 1841 census the enumerators were told to round down ages for those older than 15 to the nearest 5 years(to 15, 20, 25 ect).

However some Enumerators chose to record exact ages (As given in the household schedules, they had distributed, or given verbaly)

Chris

Also on the 1841 I have come across the odd one or two where the children's ages have been rounded down too - unless there were lots of twins and triplets living in the same road ...

Jill

As stated earlier, look at the earliest census you can - this is likely to be the most accurate.

Next probably stems from lies told when getting married.

Underage - claimed they were older. Given that most parents couldn't write, it was easier to claim you were of full age than get your dad to sign a chitty.agreeing to the marriage.

Groom younger than Bride. Again, in some quarters this was a big no- no, so lied.

Difficulty with all this was remembering what you said last time, hence the variance from census to census.

My wife's great grandad was - allegedly - born in 1847, or there about. His wife, we are fairly certain, was born in 1846. All sorts of mayhem on the census returns + - 2 years not uncommon

"My wife's great grandad was - allegedly - born in 1847, or there about. His wife, we are fairly certain, was born in 1946."
Really? :-)

Now that's what I call an impressive age difference!
jan

When I first started tracing my family history, I lost count of the number of times I gave my own year of birth on documents as 1852 - and I'm still here to tell the tale!

regarding birth place


a lot may depend on how the enumerator phrased the question

If he asked "Where are you from?" or "where did you come from?" ...... it could be answered either with birth place or literally, as the last place the person lived before moving to "this" place.


Or the person might have said the name of a tiny village in another county, enumerator had never heard of it, so asked where it was near ....... and that was then entered as the birth place.


Also .... as already said, someone might have been born in one place, but had lived in another place since a very young age. He wouldn't rememebr the birth place, and would think he was born in the second.


The other thing to remember is that age meant a lot less to our ancestors than it does to us.


Finally ....... the vast majority of our ancestors were illiterate, some of the enumerators only slightly more literate ........ but that means that our ancestors couldn't correct any errors made by the enumerators.



sylvia

Don't forget there was plenty of time for a death and remarriage between census. Therefore Ann in 1881 is not necessarily the same Ann in 1891


Personally I think my ancestors lied to make my life difficult


Peter

Has been corrected - 1846 not 1946.....! lol