another interesting posting from Roy Stockdill Jean in NS ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roy Stockdill" <roystock@compuserve.com> To: <CHESHIRE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 8:31 AM Subject: [CHS] Ages given on Marriage certificates >>Frankly I do not think most folk knew their ages. It did not matter to them. They just made a guess.<< THERE is much truth in this. One of the most important things any newcomer to family history should learn is that the very first thing you must do is cast off all modern ideas, values and preconceptions and attempt to project yourself mentally into the age in which you are researching. It often comes as a surprise to newbies, for instance, that their surname was spelt in so many different ways, especially today when the spelling of our surname is sacrosanct and "set in stone" to us. It simply wasn't as important to our ancestors, most of whom were illiterate and rarely needed to know how their surname was spelt, so they usually left it to the vicar on occasions of baptisms, marriages and deaths. If you find a sudden change in the spelling of your family surname in parish registers, try and find a list of the vicars for the period and you may well notice that the change coincided with the arrival of a new incumbent who thought the name should be spelt some other way! Likewise with ages. Anyone born before the start of civil registration in 1837 would quite likely have no record of their birth or baptism unless it had been recorded in a family bible or some similar document, thus when the census enumerators called they often made a guess. This is why ages can vary so much from one census to another. Equally, they did not always know where they had been born and gave the first place they could remember living in, whereas that might not have been the actual birthplace at all. You will also often find that in one census a birthplace is given as a village and in a subsequent census as the nearest town. It is the same with addresses. Again, newbies may find this hard to understand but before about the 1840s or 1850s most people simply didn't have official addresses. If they lived in a village everyone knew where they lived and a stranger would quickly be given directions - "It's the second cottage on the left past the church" or whatever. It was only the gradual spread of literacy and hence the mail, when people began to receive letters, that made proper formal addresses necessary, first in towns and then in rural areas later. Even in major cities, addresses didn't really begin to come into widespread use until about the middle of the 19th century. The key, as I said, is always to try and put yourself in the position of your ancestors and forget modern values. Roy Stockdill, Editor, The Journal of One-Name Studies The Stockdill Family History Society Web page:- http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roystock Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- http://www.one-name.org "Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you. If he does not, why humiliate him?" - Canon Sydney Smith (scholar and humorist 1771-1845) CHESHIRE interests - PLEVIN and WILLIAMS at Nantwich/Acton-by-Nantwich, pre 1814 ==== CHESHIRE Mailing List ==== CHESHIRE-L Mailing List Archives: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl Just enter 'cheshire' at the prompt. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.230 / Virus Database: 111 - Release Date: 1/25/01