Information given on Irish records at the recent national genealogical conference in Boston suggested that the Irish did know their year of birth but did not compute it the same way we do. They might say they were born in the "year of the big wind." Everyone in their area would have known when that was. I suppose they didn't always know exactly what year (A.D.) that was, but from years of birth given when they emigrated to the US, they had a general idea of the year. My grandfather, who was supposed to be great with numbers, gave his year of birth as 1856, but I found it was really 1855. I suppose, generally speaking, that was close. My grandfather's brother shaved 20 years off his life but not because he didn't know his year of birth. He wanted to continue to be employed and was afraid he would be let go from work. My grandmother's sister shaved 20 years off her life too because she said she didn't want to be considered elderly so the city of Boston would put her in a home for the aged and infirm. When speaking to family, she did give her correct year of birth. So I think there are many, many variations regarding inaccuracy of age, at least what we consider to be inaccurate. Jan ----- Original Message ----- From: <irl-cork-request@rootsweb.com> To: <irl-cork@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 6:46 PM Subject: IRL-CORK Digest, Vol 1, Issue 22 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: John Connolly (LindaG2854@aol.com) > 2. Difference between Baurnahulla townland and village of > Dromdaleague, Baurnahulla? (Jan Fortado) > 3. Irish Birthdates (RobinVanM@aol.com) > 4. depth of grave considerations (Zizek, Candi (DHS-DCDC-IDB)) > 5. Re: Irish Birthdates (kevin ) > 6. Re: Irish Birthdates (dolard54@optonline.net) > 7. Re: Irish Birthdates (Ann W) > 8. Re: Irish Birthdates (kevin ) > 9. Re: Irish Birthdates (LindaG2854@aol.com) > 10. Re: Irish Birthdates (Susan Troy) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > To contact the IRL-CORK list administrator, send an email to > IRL-CORK-admin@rootsweb.com. > > To post a message to the IRL-CORK mailing list, send an email to > IRL-CORK@rootsweb.com. > > __________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRL-CORK-request@rootsweb.com > with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body > of the > email with no additional text. >