In a message dated 14/06/2009 21:08:18 GMT Daylight Time, sue.horn@ntlworld.com writes: i know census are out by 5 years sometimes more .However the census does have him born within county Durham - could this mean that in 1841 he could be south Stockton ( Yorkshire )? It's not a case of the census being "out", just that the rule in 1841 was that the ages of adults be rounded down to the multiple of five years below. Any inaccuracies in people's judgement of their own ages, plus any inaccuracies in the application of that rule by themselves or by the enumerator will just have further blurred the precision, or lack of it, of the perceived possible year of birth. At the time in question, South Stockton had always been in Yorkshire and so could not correctly have been meant by "this county". However if the persons concerned, or the enumerator, were being vague it is conceivable that they might just have thought of it as "this county" even though they would have been wrong in so doing. Geoff Nicholson