Conflicting ages.

[Ann In the UK]

After the introduction of compulsory registration, how likely is it that someone wouldn't know exactly when they were born?

I have a couple of relatives born after compulsory registration was introduced and have copies of birth certificates for both. But on military service documents I have for each of them, both have given the wrong birth dates or ages. One is out only by a couple of weeks (but there were clear reasons his mother was likely to have registered him after the 42 days had expired, so the date he gives is probably the accurate one) but the other is by a couple of years. In both cases, I'm 100% certain that I have the right people (all other details, including next of kin, home address etc, are correct).

Would welcome your thoughts,

Regards,
Ann

[LesleyB]

Hi Ann
My thoughts would be that folk back then were just not as familar with their own birth date as we tend to be nowadays. We have to fill in forms and verbally state our birthdates many times each year - even my NHS patient number uses my birthdate with a few numbers tagged on the end to make it a unique reference. If I forget my birthdate, there are many places where I could find it!!

But back then this was not the case. I don't think much was made of birthdays as annual excuses for a party or wee dram either, so there was no great need to remeber the date, nor would you be asked to give it frequently as a means to ID, so it is not surprising that many people when asked were not able to come up with what was the "correct" date.

Best wishes
Lesley

[Rockford]

Hi Ann,

I've seen different ages recorded for the same person(s) throughout the censuses and on birth, marriage and death certificates. Normally it's only out by a year or two, but I've seen census and death entries for people who'd obviously had a hard life being out by as much as ten years.

I think that things perhaps improved after statutory registration, but this perhaps depended on whether the birth certificate was available for reference. My family moved around various farms and I think that most records might have been lost. Some of them even lost track of where they were born, never mind when!! Some also knocked off the occasional five years here and there when they married or remarried to someone younger.

As Lesley said, it's perhaps the case as well that birthdays were, for the majority of folk, not seen as the celebration/milestones that they are now. My own grandmother born - we know now - in 1924 could never remember how old she was.

Best wishes

Brian

[emanday]

If memory serves me, there was a post many moons ago about the year of birth issue, pre statutory registration.

I'm sure it referred to an article or study that deduced that many people back then "dated" their birth by an event and time of year. (i.e. During harvest the year of the laird's marriage.)

[Ann In the UK]

Hi,

Thank's for your input Lesley and Brian. You're both pretty much echoing my thoughts. I also think illiteracy played a huge part, certainly in both my cases anyway. Both their mothers were illiterate, and I can imagine, once the document was signed (both with an x), they pretty much forgot all about it. I mean, registering a birth was a new requirement and I'm sure many people wondered what the point of it was - they'd never needed to remember such information before, why would they suddenly need to afterward?

Mary, thanks for the tip, I'll see if I can find it.

Best wishes,
Ann

[speleobat2]

Hi all,

The other possibility is that one date was the birth and the other might have been a christening. Christenings could take place anywhere from the same day as the birth to several years later. Can't count the number of records I have that are just of the christening and if you were one of fourteen kids born when the registration process was new, your parents might have been lucky to remember that you were even one of theirs! Illigitimate children would be in a class of their own here too. I have several who's parents changed with each census, along with their ages!

Carol

[ficam]

One other option , especially for the one that was out a couple of years on military papers , was that they may have been trying to make themselves older so that they could join up.

We have been unable to trace an military records for an recent ancestor of mine and my brother reckons it is because he not only lied about his age and made himself a couple of years older, but may even have used an elder brothers name....

[Ann In the UK]

Hi Carol and Ficam,

I went back to check that, Ficam, because you put the doubt in my mind about when they may have joined up. But both were well within military age at the time.Thanks for the suggestion though.

Carol, their Christening dates? Now that was something I hadn't thought of and will be checking out next time I'm in the record office. Thanks for that.

Regards,
Ann

[Gordon]

If you are looking at the 1841 census they rounded ages down to the closest 5th year. Not on everyone-from what I see children were excepted.

Also, my mother "fudged" her age down a wee bit. Maybe that and old Scottish tradition.

[LesleyB]

Hi Gordon
...and welcome to Talking Scot

There is more info about the 1841 and other Scots census years here:
http://www.talkingscot.com/censuses/census-intro.htm

You can also access this area of TS by clicking on the Censuses link at the top of every page.

Best wishes
Lesley