Missing Child !!

[LesleyB]

Also to be considered with ages stated in census records, are the instructions to the census takers where they were instructed to round-up/down the age to the closest full year or the closest 5 year mark.

Only in 1841, ages to be rounded down to nearest 5 years. See http://www.talkingscot.com/censuses/census-1841.htm

Best wishes
Lesley

[Montrose Budie]

Perhaps paddyscar is referring to the Canadian censuses?

mb

[LesleyB]

- I had thought we were talking about the UK census, not having read the post properly! However, I was unaware of the age rules on the Canadian census, but there is no obvious indication here that that was the case:
http://c.mfcreative.com//i/landing/intl ... index.html
- "age next birthday" seems to be the form on the earlier census dates, but thereafter it is just "age" or "age at last birthday" in 1901. No mention here of rounding ages up or rouding down to the nearest 5 as we are used to seeing in the Scottish 1841. The worst that should happen in the early census years is that someone may appear to be one year older than you may have been expecting, but of course, as pointed out by Frances...this depends on people actually knowing how old they are!!

Best wishes
Lesley