Reliable dates of birth?

morgano · Post by **morgano** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:35 am

Hello.
I have been researching some Scottish ancestors and I have a general question concerning dates of birth. Particularly in the days before 1855, did people accurately recall their ages and their dates of birth?

What prompts the question is the way ages fluctuate in census returns and the way in which ages in census returns can be out of step with other forms of evidence which come to light. I have a couple of examples of what I mean.

There was a Susan Fergusson, later Susan McKay, who lived in nineteenth century Dundee. The census records for 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1881 vary slightly over her age; she could have been born from 1809 to 1812, according to the different censuses. As luck would have it, though, Susan Fergusson (although now spelled "Ferguson") is one of those whose name appears in the Wesleyan Register of Baptisms for Dundee, which very precisely gives her a date of birth: 28th June, 1813 (and "precision" and "accuracy", I know, are not the same thing). The baptism is dated 5th November, 1832. (I am very confident that these two Susans are one and the same, not least because Susan's daughter Isabella is also in the Register, with enough corroborating detail to make the identification very secure.) If Susan actually knew her age, why is it exaggerated in every census (I haven't tracked her down in 1841 so far)?

In the 1871 census, there are twenty-five people on the page in total. Of these, six - nearly a quarter - have ages which are a multiple of ten and these occur in three families, including the McKays, who are 60 (Susan) and 70 (Robert). That seems statistically improbable, although not, of course, impossible. Apart from the census-takers, who came along only every ten years, anyway, would anyone else have been concerned to ask for someone's age and d.o.b. in pre-1855 Scotland?

Susan Fergusson McKay is my great-great-great-grandmother and Isabella my great-great-grandmother, hence my interest in them.

Another example of strangely inconsistent ages in the census records involves Marjory McLaren, of Dull, Perthshire, who is 13 in 1841, 20 in 1851 and only 24 in 1861. Another member of the household, James McLaren, did even better: although he was 60 in 1851, he was still 60 ten years later. I think James McLaren had a sister, called Margaret, who was another great-great-great-grandmother of mine, and Marjory McLaren was either the sister or the first cousin of another Margaret, another great-great-grandmother.

My guess is that people would remember their birthdays, even if they could rarely afford to make a song and dance about them, but had less reason to remember the year of birth. Is that reasonable? I'd be interested to hear any views. If anyone knows more about Susan and Isabella, especially about where they were in 1841, I'd be delighted to hear from you. I think Isabella was Susan's only child, but Isabella Maxwell, as she became, had seven children and must have numerous descendants.

morgano

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:02 am

Hi Morgano,

I don't think that they forgot their ages so much as they just lied about them.

It seems that anyone between 18 and 65 didn't give their correct ages, at least in my family. Very few of my ancestors gave their correct ages on the census. Women are usually worse than men, but I have one GGGrandfather who cut 20 years off his age.

He was living with a much younger woman at the time.
People don't seem to give their correct ages until they get into their seventies.

Don't know if this will help, but it is an observation.

Regards

winslowsmom · Post by **winslowsmom** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:28 am

Hi All

I've had this problem with ages as well. I know there was a lot of fudging of ages for one reason or another - what if the census taker was a hunk?
But also, a certain amount of age variance has to do with census instructions, as interpreted by individual census takers, how a person understood the questions asked of them, and finally, how we read them now.

The 1841 census instructions asked for the ages of those over 15 to be rounded to the nearest 5 years. My family's census taker took it for all ages. I thought I had 3 sets of twins - one set 5 years, one set 10 yrs and one set 15 yrs! To top it, some of the older ones were born before 1855, so I never did get an exact handle.

I haven't read the instructions for all the census years lately, but they are right there on Scotlands People - you don't have to pay, I think just log in, and click the census year and a good blurb comes up and tells you when and what they were supposed to do for that year. But I imagine that there were people who remembered that in 1841 you were supposed to round your age by 5 years, and were still doing it on the 1881 census!
What if granny remembered that and yelled from the next room, nooo, not your age now, your age at the first of the year, and round it off! I get confused reading the instructions now relaxing in front of my computer, never mind shivering on a cold night with a man with a clipboard and a dour expression at my door!

Then for those of us who didn't go to school in Scotland or ever see Granny's writing, there is the matter of 1s and 4s and 7s. Who can tell the difference at first! Also, for years, I thought someone was 14 until I blew an image up and found the 1 was a random mark on the paper and the wee lad was just 4.

One big puzzle! (and not the inexpensive fast ones) Have fun with it.

Cathy H.

morgano · Post by **morgano** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:02 am

Thanks for the replies! I hadn't heard about the rule imposed for the 1841 census, but I had wondered why so many ages seemed rounded to multiples of five. Margaret McLaren was one of three siblings or cousins, at the same address, supposedly aged 15 in 1841, according to that census. Susan Fergusson's census records, though, are all older than her declared age at the time of her baptism.

eilthireach · Post by **eilthireach** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:51 am

"I don't think that they forgot their ages so much as they just lied about them."

Sorry, I'm not picking on the person who wrote this specifically, but it seems to be such a commonly held view that it just has to be refuted. It's nonsense. You have to understand the level of education (and competence in basic arithmetic!), the question whether the subject of date and place of birth was ever discussed between a child and its parents (or any individual and his/her parents) (and why should it discuss ages or places of birth with its parents ... why, my earliest memories were of such and such a village and so that must be where I was born, so I don't need to ask my parents for confirmation, and I remember playing with such and such children and I think we were all of the same age, which, I think, was X, and that was Y years ago, I think, and so I must be aged Z now), did the person have an occupation where age was of any concern whatsoever ... there are just so many variables that need to be borne in mind when reading records which give ages (parish registers, marriage records, census returns) ... did the individual know his/her own age, was it transmitted correctly to the person recording it, was it transmitted by that individual or by a second or third party, did the recorder hear correctly, was the information recorded there and then, or was it noted down and then transcribed later into the formal record, are there errors of transcription, .... there are just so many factors that have a bearing on this ... Remember also that the marking or celebration of birthdays - birthday parties and such things - are fairly recent things historically speaking, and social and cultural background determined whether birthdays were marked at all (even in modern times ... we didn't celebrate birthdays in our family, and for no other reason than we didn't, we just didn't! Noted them in passing, maybe, but no celebration!) ... remember also that especially before the introduction of civil registration there was as often as not (or probably more often than not) no record of your birth that you could refer to and ask for an official copy of ... not everyone was baptised, not even in the same family, as you may well have discovered in your researches
I read a book about emigration which cited a letter written by a German who had emigrated to the US in the 19th century. He was writing to his parents back home and asking them to write back and let him know how old he was!! (I don't know about you, but that got to me!)
... so, please, think flexibly when you are doing your researches ... bear all of these things in mind when you are reading the historical records ...

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:10 am

Hi all

I haven't read the instructions for all the census years lately, but they are right there on Scotlands People

There are detailed descriptions here on Talking Scot!! Just click on the Census link at the top of this page!

Best wishes
Lesley

nelmit · Post by **nelmit** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:05 am

Not sure if I've followed the Wesleyan Baptisms correctly

but could this be your Isabella, with her grandfather, in 1841 from FREECEN?

Piece: SCT1841/282 Place: Dundee -Angus Enumeration District: 118
Civil Parish: Dundee Ecclesiastical Parish, Village or Island: -
Folio: 1 Page: 23
Address: Westport

Surname First name(s) Sex Age Occupation Where Born Remarks
FERGUSON Peter M 50 Angus
FERGUSON Isabel F 16 Spinner Angus

Regards,
Annette

morgano · Post by **morgano** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:42 pm

Thank you very much! I think they could very well be the ones I am looking for. Peter is definitely the right name. There is also a record of a Susan Fergusson in the 1841 census, also in Dundee, aged 35, working as a domestic servant for a Revd Patrick MacVicar. I had rather discounted that one before, because I had reckoned on finding Susan and Isabella in the same census record and I hadn't realised that the 1841 census routinely rounded up adults' ages.

Thanks again!

Morgano

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:16 pm

Hi Morgano

and I hadn't realised that the 1841 census routinely rounded up adults' ages.

In the 1841 census ages were to be rounded DOWN to the nearest 5.

Best wishes
Lesley

morgano · Post by **morgano** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:10 am

OK, thanks. In that case, Susan Fergusson is still missing in 1841.