Genealogy Chat

Top tip - using the Genes Reunited community

Welcome to the Genes Reunited community boards!

  • The Genes Reunited community is made up of millions of people with similar interests. Discover your family history and make life long friends along the way.
  • You will find a close knit but welcoming group of keen genealogists all prepared to offer advice and help to new members.
  • And it's not all serious business. The boards are often a place to relax and be entertained by all kinds of subjects.
  • The Genes community will go out of their way to help you, so don’t be shy about asking for help.

Quick Search

Single word search

Icons

  • New posts
  • No new posts
  • Thread closed
  • Stickied, new posts
  • Stickied, no new posts

birth years are diffrent in census.

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

Potty

Potty Report 20 Feb 2013 12:49

Had that too, Tess - the different POBs pointed me in the right direction.

TessAkaBridgetTheFidget

TessAkaBridgetTheFidget Report 20 Feb 2013 03:06

Re ages changing on census.

In one instance in my tree, Mr. L's wife Sarah, seemed to get a lot younger between Census's.

Found out that it was because, his first wife Sarah, died shortly after one census. He then married for a second time, a younger lady, called Sarah!

Lisa

Lisa Report 19 Feb 2013 12:45

thank u x :-D

PatinCyprus

PatinCyprus Report 18 Feb 2013 20:50

Code for Dublin from outside of Southern Ireland is 00 353 1 407 2300 or as you have it +353 1 407 2300. I phone Dublin from Cyprus it's the same from here or UK. :-)

Lisa

Lisa Report 18 Feb 2013 13:26

hi,
need help ....ive hopefully now found a missing family member who ive serched for since 2006,
now ive been trying to ring the archives for dublin now ive tried every which way the number is but still not doin right now the number reads
+353 (0) 1 407 2300
now the code for britain is 44
do i drop the 353 and the 0 an just do 44
im confused which dont take a lot to do hahahahh :-S

lisax x

Joy

Joy Report 17 Feb 2013 22:18

It is very normal :)

Two particular ancestors of mine were ten years younger in a census ten years later :)

Sometimes people didn't know their ages. And it may have not seemed important to them years ago.



Lisa

Lisa Report 17 Feb 2013 21:02

my gr gran done the same she added year on to her age ,we found out she was only 16 wen she wed x it was on her death cert she lied all them years lol she lived to nearly 100 x :-D

Andrew

Andrew Report 17 Feb 2013 17:30

My grandfather lied about his age on his marriage cert and next vensus. He was born in 1886, but when he married in 1908 he said was 28! I think he did this to get ajob where the minimum age was 25.

Andy

LadyKira

LadyKira Report 17 Feb 2013 17:02

Sometimes couples would have a child who would die as an infant and call their next child by the same name. So you may think you are dealing with the same child but in actual fact you are not.

Lisa

Lisa Report 17 Feb 2013 16:10

thank u hun x thats a lot of gd info it all falls into place now with diffrent members of family

lisa x x x :-D

+++DetEcTive+++

+++DetEcTive+++ Report 17 Feb 2013 13:00

One of mine was 20 years older than her husband, and fibbed on every census after they had married.

Baptised 1828
37 on MC in 1879 (51)
37 on 1881 (53)
50 on 1891 (63)
55 on 1901 (73)

At least her husband came clean on her death in 1907 registering her as 78!

DazedConfused

DazedConfused Report 17 Feb 2013 12:17

My gt/gt/grandmother's age varied from census to census by 11 years and it was not until her husband died that she finally started to give her correct age.

He was her toy boy!!!! She was about 7 years older than him (like me and OH). But this would have been frowned upon by the Victorians.

People lie about their ages for many reasons.

Kense

Kense Report 17 Feb 2013 08:27

Another cause of discrepancies is if the person's birthday is between 30 March and 7th April then for censuses between 1851 and 1911 the ages may show a jump of 9 or 11 rather than 10.

The 1841 census was on 6th June so apart from the rounding that is another point to consider.

Also sites estimate the birth year by subtracting the age from the year of the census, but since most censuses are at the start of April there is roughly a three to one chance that the birth year is one year earlier.
i.e. a person whose age is given as 1 on 2nd April 1871 will have an estimated birth year of 1870 but that will only be true if their birthday is between 1 Jan and 1 April. If later in the year their birth year will actually be 1869 (assuming the form has been completed accurately).

InspectorGreenPen

InspectorGreenPen Report 17 Feb 2013 06:51

Tell me about it!

I've got many examples

1841 - 6
1851 - 15
1861 - 24
.....

1891 - 44
1901 - 53
1911 - 62
to quote but two

In some areas, if the wife was considerably older than the husband, there was a tendency to try and hide the size of the gap by bumping up his age and hers down a few years.

I also have several names where spellings varied. Some were clearly errors by the enumerator in transcribing what he had heard, others were evolution into the form we know today.

A word of warning though - don't go too far the other way and accept discrepancies too easily without exploring all other possibilities. Sometimes it is pretty obvious that it is the same family from one census to the next, but not always. If it doesn't sound right then it probably isn't.


Porkie_Pie

Porkie_Pie Report 17 Feb 2013 03:56

your welcome

Roy

Lisa

Lisa Report 17 Feb 2013 03:55

thank you roy x
it now makes sense to me x x

lisa x

Porkie_Pie

Porkie_Pie Report 17 Feb 2013 03:46

Year of birth on a census is only approximate,
often it also depended on who gave the info, for census purposes i allow a 2 to 3 plus or minus differential to allow for this
but i have come across some that were out by 5 years

NOTE; The 1841 census all ages where rounded down to the nearest 5 so you could be age 29 but would be recorded as age 25, Children 15 or younger where recorded as actual age but on the census transcriptions it would still be an approximate age

as for variation in spelling the surname, remember not everyone could read and write plus the enumerator would simply spell the name as he heard/understood it also bear in mind someones accent would also make a difference

Roy

Lisa

Lisa Report 17 Feb 2013 03:26

hi people is it normal for the birth year to be diffrent,on the census ???
im finding i have the right family link but in on census it gives on date then the next census will say its the same person but birth year is out....also the surnames change the futher back you go eg same name but diffrent spelling or the nme has been extended ?????confused :-S