Patricia, The questions asked about persons' age, differed in census years, and sometimes people would mis understand the question, so the ages and in the case of the 1900 census year birth month and year, it is not at all unusual to find errors. I will tell you that my personal belief is that censuses are valuable for locations of families on a certain date, and beyond that can be in error. Now, as to the death certificates, in most cases, although not all those were filed in close proximity to the death date, so the year is probably correct. The only exceptions I have found, is where the age of the person may be a "guesstimate" by the person giving the information. Even those can be in error on information, but I would tend to accept the year of death over and above a lot of the information contained on them. Wilma -------Original Message------- From: P.A. Topolski Date: 12/17/2007 1:18:07 PM To: mobarry@rootsweb.com Subject: [MOBARRY] birthdates Hi, I'm writing to ask if anyone besides me has encountered a problem with a one-year discrepancy between the birthdate listed on the 1900 census and a person's actual birthdate? For example, the census record says that a person was born August 15, 1882, but his death certificate says August 15, 1883. It's always that the birth month and day are correct but the year is off by exactly one year. Anybody else run into this situation? Patricia Topolski _____________________________________________________________________________ ______ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs Please tell us about your Barry county ancestors. The list-admin is Donna Cooper, address - (saarisr@sbcglobal.net) ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MOBARRY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
Patricia & Wilma, You look at the date on the top of the census page as to when the census was taken. That may clear up some dates for you. I have seen some taken as late as Nov. of the year. Suzanne At 01:59 PM 12/17/2007, you wrote: >Patricia, > >The questions asked about persons' age, differed in census years, and >sometimes people would mis understand the question, so the ages and in the >case of the 1900 census year birth month and year, it is not at all unusual >to find errors. I will tell you that my personal belief is that censuses are >valuable for locations of families on a certain date, and beyond that can be >in error. Now, as to the death certificates, in most cases, although not all > those were filed in close proximity to the death date, so the year is >probably correct. The only exceptions I have found, is where the age of the >person may be a "guesstimate" by the person giving the information. Even >those can be in error on information, but I would tend to accept the year of >death over and above a lot of the information contained on them. > >Wilma > >-------Original Message------- > >From: P.A. Topolski >Date: 12/17/2007 1:18:07 PM >To: mobarry@rootsweb.com >Subject: [MOBARRY] birthdates > >Hi, I'm writing to ask if anyone besides me has encountered a problem >with a one-year discrepancy between the birthdate listed on the 1900 >census and a person's actual birthdate? For example, the census record >says that a person was born August 15, 1882, but his death certificate >says August 15, 1883. It's always that the birth month and day are >correct but the year is off by exactly one year. Anybody else run into >this situation? Patricia Topolski > > >_____________________________________________________________________________ >______ >Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. >http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs >Please tell us about your Barry county ancestors. The list-admin is Donna >Cooper, address - (saarisr@sbcglobal.net) > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >MOBARRY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >in the subject and the body of the message > >Please tell us about your Barry county ancestors. The list-admin is >Donna Cooper, address - (saarisr@sbcglobal.net) > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >MOBARRY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >quotes in the subject and the body of the message