Which is more accurate Census Records or Marriage/ death records

[Zoemcdougall]

When trying to work out a persons year of birth which record would be more accurate, the info a census record or that on a marriage or death cert.

[Merry]

How long is a piece of string!!

It depends entirely on who asks the question and what they ask, who answers the question, what factual information they have and whether they use that information to answer the question or pick a number out of the air!

I could give you endless examples of accurate and inaccurate information from my own tree which would prove little help when looking at a different tree. I suppose I might have found more people with larger discrepancies on the census than on their death certificate, even though many people say death certs are less reliable.

Do you have a specific example? :):):)

[Olde Crone]

I would say that the nearer to birth you can find someone, the more accurate their age is likely to be - but only MORE likely. I have one census where a load of grandchildren are staying with their grandparents and whoever filled in the census (grandad?) got the ages of the small children mixed up.

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule, sorry.

OC

[marquette]

I agree with Merry.

I have lots of examples of accidently wrongly recorded ages and dates, to say nothing of the deliberately wrong information, recorded on birth marriage and death certs and, alas, people who actually lied to the census collectors.

I guess depends on whether you think they are deliberately giving the wrong info to cover up something, or whether they could not be bothered, or really did not know. Or the recorder misheard what he was being told or (in the case of parish registers) was writing up the register later in the week/month/year.


Di

[Shona]

Beware of the ages in the 1841 census. Enumerators were instructed to round down the ages to those over 15 to the nearest five. Although sometimes the real age was given. I can remember starting out researching my family and was excited when I thought I had found triplets in the 1841 census.

If you see FA or Full Age on a marriage record. it means that the person was 21 or over.

It also depends on how truthful people were. One of my relatives aged just five years over a 20-year period.

When working out a likely year of birth, I take info from several censuses, marriage record and death record.

[kiterunner]

I agree with all of the above. With census records, usually the most accurate age will be that of a baby or young child, and then the age gets less accurate as the person gets older. Though the 1841 is an exception because of the rounding. Marriage certificates - sometimes it will just say "full age" or "over 21" but sometimes people lied about their age when they got married, either so they would be old enough to get married without a parent's permission, or because they wanted to make the age gap between the bride and groom seem smaller. The age on a death certificate or burial record will be the age that the informant thinks the deceased was. Also it was (and still is!) quite common for a woman to pretend to be younger than she really was.

Date of birth (if stated) on a baby's baptism will probably be about right but when you get to baptisms over the age of 1 year the date of birth can be wrong.

Even the date of birth on school admission records can be out by a year or so but unlikely to be wildly wrong. Presumably the date of birth on an infant school admission is most accurate, then junior, then secondary.

Family Bibles can be pretty good for getting correct dates of birth but presumably those are not always accurate either.

[JBee]

Recently got a death certificate where the daughter had registered the death of her mother and she'd lost 17 years on her age - is that a record?

Agree the nearest age you get to the birth is most likely to be the more accurate but not necessarily!! lol

[Merry]

Almost, Julie! My 3xg-grandfather was 55 in 1841 and 80 five years later when he died! Rather a lot of rounding down took place!!

[tinkerbe]

i think it also depends if they can read and write

[Nell]

Zoe

If you have a particular person in mind, do post details and we might be able to help.

I agree with Merry's original post though. In my research, I've found a decided old maid in my ex's tree who only aged 3 years between 2 censuses, though her sister cruelly gave the exact age when registering the death!

I've got lots of age discrepancies, though generally only by a year or two and usually the baptism record solves the problem.

[Zoemcdougall]

The reason I asked which record would be more accurate is because of my great grandfather That Merry, Kate & many others have helped me with. Just going over the info I have on him & his wife. On the Marriage cert for Edward & Mary has her age as 18 at the time of the Marriage in 1899,
which is correct as I have her birth cert, father's name William as also stated on marriage with same occupation Mason. The Census records for Mary that Elizabeth & Merry found are also right, as I have been given her Obituary notice which mentions her siblings.

With Regards to Edward if his age was truly 22 as stated on Marriage cert then Year of birth would be 1877, although his death cert states he was 83 when he died 1956. putting his year of birth 1873.

His Granddaughter had started doing the family tree years ago and gave a copy to my father (Her Brother) a copy, telling him she couldn't find much on him only that he was a railway ganger, b. sheffield 1873 which he then forwarded me a copy, I contacted her to see if she found out anymore but said she hadn't but would give what she had got which wasn't much different to what she had given her brother, she also sent me a copy of tree she had sent to my Dad but on that one she had Edward's birth as 1877, I think she has more on him that she is letting on also.
There was a few discrepency on there paternal side as she had Mother & Daughter' s date of death on the same day. Mother b. 1852 Daughter b. 1874 both down as date of death 1970!!

[Phoenix]

It is extremely easy with all of us to accidentally copy a date down incorrectly.

In earlier times, heralds went round the country, taking down details of rich people's ancestors. They would question men about their immediate families. When two brothers gave the answers you would often think they were talking about entirely different families from what they remember and what they forget.