<<snipped>> Yes, (speaking like a UK family historian), the fact that something was invented for the certificate is indeed primary evidence for **a deception being employed**. However, the same words are only secondary evidence for the **date of birth** (the original query). <<snipped>>   I am with Adrian here - I think the nearest you can get with an age on a marriage certificate is an approximation. My grandmother stated her age on the marriage certificate as 26, and her husband 24. As I also have their birth certificates, I know that she was in fact 28, whereas he was only 23! So they both gave false information - maybe to hide the fact that she was still a spinster at 28, maybe to hide the age gap, we'll never know. However with your cousin, if he was indeed 22, then you should be able to find him as a baby in the 1911 census ? - I have found that however much people lied about their ages as adults, in census and other documents, the ages of babies in the census were usually accurate! Regards, Andrea   ________________________________ From: Dennis Hawkins <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, 3 February 2014, 20:47 Subject: [FHU] Primary Evidence I have a Marriage Certificate showing that my cousin was 22 when he got married in July 1931. It may sound a bit strange but I consider that this is “Primary Evidence” that he was born in “approximately 1909”. Is this correct? Dennis Hawkins ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message