View Full Version : So maybe they do know their ages after all!
Nothing to add to BK6 from this thread
It's often been said that our ancestors were quite vague about ages and dates of birth and this is apparently confirmed by census records where adults are often listed wrongly, and even young children are regularly a year or two out.
The LMA records recently published by Ancestry are, however, revealing a different picture for OH's London relatives. In the past we have bought birth certs for many of the members of these families, and so have lots of exact birth dates. These families are just like so many others, with approximate ages on the census, however, their tendency towards multiple baptisms of older children and even some adult baptisms reveals a 100% accurate (so far) knowledge of their dates of birth recorded in the baptismal registers.
So, was it deemed important to have the correct information to hand for the vicar, but not for the census form even though this might be in the house for a few days before it needed to be completed......?
kiterunner
21-10-09, 07:18
Funnily enough, I was just looking at the two baptisms for my 3xg-uncle William Brown yesterday - one where he was baptised 18th Feb 1803, date of birth given as 27th Jan 1803, and the other where he was baptised 11 Oct 1816, date of birth given as 4 Feby 1803. The family Bible gives his date of birth as 4 July, which I presume was copied out wrong when someone misread "Feby" (very easy mistake to make) but I wonder which of the two baptisms has the wrong date of birth.
Of course all OH's Ariels have their correct date of birth back to 1791 as far as I've found, along with their pedigree.....lol
My Kettleys can only just get within the right decade..........lol
anne fraser
21-10-09, 16:26
The vicar may have had his own records. I think some churches kept a cradle roll. I know the church where one set of grandparents lived gave all new babies a blanket and entered it in the parish diary.
I can't imagine them being that organised in some of the London parishes where there were often several baptisms, if not pages of them, every day. :)
You presumably are talking post 1837 for them all? iN which case, they may have had a little bit of paper to wave at the minister?
I've seen several children born less than 9 months apart. Though, of course, whether that is the parents' error, or the clergyman's, who can say?
Yes, after 1837, but you wouldn't know they had those bits of paper from the census returns!
I have one family who were all baptised twice. I don't know why - all as babies and then again as older teens. They all have the same (pre 1837) dates of birth for both sets of records. Maybe they had baptismal certs from the first time round, but if they did, would they have been re-baptised? Once they reached the census records they all forgot their ages!!
Some people in my/ex's tree are very exact and age only 10 years between censuses. Others don't.
Just as some people now know how long they've been married and others have to work it out. Some people can recite their National Insurance number, others have no idea. I don't think we can generalise about "our ancestors did/didn't..." whatever.
And I have examples of exact birth dates being recorded - but being wrong or contradicting other records. Just cos they gave a date doesn't mean its right!!!
I was just surprised at how all mine are right but all over on the census. I was surprised they got any right at the baptisms!
Perhaps getting it wrong at a baptism was like lying to God, whereas who cared what you told the enumerator - just a nosy parker, after all!
Yes, that seems the most likely explanation.
That's interesting about lying before God, as one of OH's relatives produced a child and named her husband as the father at the register office, but when the child was baptised some twelve years later she named her new 'husband' (bigamous marriage a few months before) as the father. I thought this was just because it was easier, but then discovered the later man was a lodger in the house when the orioginal husband and wife were together, so maybe the lodger was the father after all?!! Whoops!
Olde Crone
21-10-09, 19:37
You all have a touching faith in the supposed accuracy of the enumerator!
I'm pretty sure that SOME enumerators just put any old thing down - they couldn't read the householder's writing, or they slipped a line or whatever and just made a guess.
After all, detailed accuracy was not not the main reason for the census, it was to create statistics and therefore ages within a decade of the truth were fine. Who cared - no one.
I have one utterly infuriating 1841 census record for Jane Holden....age UNKNOWN. Was she two months old or 93? A guess in this case would have been very helpful!
OC
Lol!
Whenever I'm feeling VERY mean, I ask everyone if they can find Linda Lanning on the 1901 census. The enumerator made a complete balls up of her name.
Not to mention the Bounton family. I can only assume there was a large splodge on the page, as they are down, very clearly, as Bouriton.
Not a lot has changed really.
A friend of mine has worked on several census as a collector. She has to drop the forms off and make sure the people can fill them in. If not, she can fill the form but must write eactly what the person tells her.
One year she got a suburb where you don't want to walk at night ....lol......
She filled in many forms for people who were possibly under the influence of some substance.
Several brain surgeons, Star Wars characters, Dr Who, and others............
Can you imagine the family of that lot in years to come, if Australia ever keeps that info.
My mother always put "doormat" as her occupation.
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