I concur with Leila about the accuracy of month and year being separate issues and WW1 draft cards being more reliable. But none of these is foolproof. I tend to go with the Soc Sec Death Index for accurate birthdates if people have entries on it, as some kind of paper proof is required for the birth dates that Soc. Sec has on file. That doesn't mean that is accurate, either, though, as if no other proof existed, I've heard that copies of the 1900 census pages were used! And if the informant didn't know English well, or was a child, or there were a lot of children, it was just as easy to get Month of birth wrong as it was to mis-report place of birth. Seems to me they ought to know more surely where kids were born, and since my family often reported a different State or country for some children, different in every census, I take the Month as likely but not necessarily accurate. I have instances where it was wrong as well, disagreeing with WW1 and other records. On 10/4/08, leilamenzies@aol.com <leilamenzies@aol.com> wrote: > > I have no proof of this-- but I have found on family memebers I have > researched that the MONTH is usually correct, but not always the year for > 1900 (this is about equally true for men and women).? If you have a male of > draft age for 1917-1918 WWI registrations I have found those birthdates to > be the most accurate (doesn't help with a female, though!) > Leila Menzies

I agree that year of birth and age were two different questions. I suspect though that sometimes one was based on math done by the census taker after the fact. I also suspect that sometimes the month of birth was really the month of baptism. It was the more important event for some families. Rebekah

Actually, since I worked for Social Security, the death records reflect what the person indicated when they applied for their social security number.  In my experience the accuracy matched their allegation when they applied for benefits better than 95%.  Occasionally someone made themselves older but rarely younger. --- On Sat, 10/4/08, the cohens <the.cohens.in.california@gmail.com> wrote: From: the cohens <the.cohens.in.california@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Accuracy of 1900 census on age To: CASANFRA-L@rootsweb.com Date: Saturday, October 4, 2008, 10:38 PM I concur with Leila about the accuracy of month and year being separate issues and WW1 draft cards being more reliable. But none of these is foolproof. I tend to go with the Soc Sec Death Index for accurate birthdates if people have entries on it, as some kind of paper proof is required for the birth dates that Soc. Sec has on file. That doesn't mean that is accurate, either, though, as if no other proof existed, I've heard that copies of the 1900 census pages were used! And if the informant didn't know English well, or was a child, or there were a lot of children, it was just as easy to get Month of birth wrong as it was to mis-report place of birth. Seems to me they ought to know more surely where kids were born, and since my family often reported a different State or country for some children, different in every census, I take the Month as likely but not necessarily accurate. I have instances where it was wrong as well, disagreeing with WW1 and other records. On 10/4/08, leilamenzies@aol.com <leilamenzies@aol.com> wrote: > > I have no proof of this-- but I have found on family memebers I have > researched that the MONTH is usually correct, but not always the year for > 1900 (this is about equally true for men and women).? If you have a male of > draft age for 1917-1918 WWI registrations I have found those birthdates to > be the most accurate (doesn't help with a female, though!) > Leila Menzies ************************** Visit SFGenealogy.com! http://www.sfgenealogy.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CASANFRA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message