Andy has already made some very sound comments. It is also true that many people even nowadays find it difficult to determine ages of themselves or family members and also to remember names of grandkids etc..... Two war stories My soon to be m-i-l in 1966 told me she was 50 that year - she was born 1921. Frequently calls her two daughters by the other one's name - it depends on which she was with most at that time. And Joan was a shop keeper - would get the money right every time... Plenty of us are like Joan In Census my ggf aged 7 or 8 years very random whereas his wife aged exactly 10 ..... and I see plenty like that ... many folk just got it wrong or the return was filled in by some else who made guesses... And thats another problem the enumerator had to copy the return to the report and often they guessed at the writing. 1911 is first census for which household return were kept so we see what they said..... There is also the why "bother to fill in exactly its only the government" .... Amd also the Genealogists error - census were in March or April (except 1841) and most people deduct age from census year to get birth year. Even if age is correct that calculation will be wrong 75% of the time.... Ron Lankshear -Sydney NSW (from London-Shepherds Bush/Chiswick) try my links http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lankshear/ On 2011-09-30 3:24 AM, Frank Green wrote: > While searching through sequential census I've noticed, among other things, some significant discrepancies in persons ages between the ten year census periods. I