We've all be told this many times but it can still confuse our genealogical research. Ages. I'm sure you've all run into variances in ages on census records and we've talked about that before. Every ten years we should be ten years older, right? Well, not always on the census records. It depended on who the census taker asked sometimes. We all get a chuckle at the lady of the household who only ages 5-6 years every 10 years. Grandma might have been asked and her memory is fading. A child could have been asked and every adult is old to them. The census taker might have guessed if there was no one to ask and he didn't want to go back out to see the family again or he might not have heard the person correctly. Or he wrote it so sloppily that we transcribed it wrong. But, there are other times when the ages can be off. Obituaries can be wrong too, especially the older ones which were often written by family members, neighbors or friends and praising the deceased. Old John might have looked 95 but he was only 80 and been aged by working out in the sun too long! Family members might have told the undertaker the wrong age or date of birth while in shock. And, the newspapers could have typeset it wrong. We all can find errors in published obituaries - I gave my grandfather's name wrong when my Mom recently died and didn't catch it until I saw it in the paper. I was really kidded by the funeral home who know that I'm a genealogist! And, in older days, people didn't always know how old they were! As strange as it seems today, families didn't keep a lot of records unless they made an entry in an old family Bible. Those Bibles could have been lost over the years or the person making the entry could have done it "after the fact" many years later. Tombstones can be wrong too. I have mentioned before of finding several times a different date of birth or death on a headstone than what is recorded in a funeral home record, a death certificate or newspaper obituary. Maddening? Yes! So, as with many details we record of our ancestor, there can be variances in dates. If there are differences in the records, I try to note this on my records for that individual. Sandi Sandi's Puzzlers: http://www.gensoup.org/gorinpuzzles/index.php Sandi's site: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/