In message <[email protected]>, Michael Scott <[email protected]> writes >Hello, > >I'm tracing the history of an C18 East London merchant. He is in partnership >with a brewer in Aldgate up to the early 1730s, marries and moves to >Whitechapel in 1732, and goes into the corn trade. He is also a tax assessor >or auditor for various E London parishes. I've been helped by the fact that >he has a fairly distinctive signature that survives on numerous tax and >parish records. > >But there's a problem. In several documents he gives his age, and there is a >worrying disparity: > >Consistory court deposition 1711 -- about 35 >Consistory court deposition 1713 -- about 37 >Chancery deposition 1722 -- about 47 years >Marriage Allegation 1732 -- aged 30 years (bachelor) >Chancery deposition 1746 -- about 50 years > >If the early ages are remotely accurate, then he was actually in his mid-50s >when he married. Which seems a bit excessive for a man in a good financial position, not a soldier, not a rake helly gent. A merchant needs a wife to make things comfortable for him and to keep en eye on the valuables when he is working. > >What I would like to know is whether it is usual for someone (who is >literate and numerate) to be so wildly inaccurate about their age, Once they were 21, and a full adult, people had no good reason to think about their exact ages until suddenly some official demanded to know. However, the range of discrepancy is usually around a couple of years, up to five being acceptable. It looks to me as if you do have two people here, possibly father born around 1676 and son born around 1699/1700 (which could be checked by a will?) The marriage licence age is often rounded (usually 21 and upwards, 25 and upwards, but if he says 'getting on for thirty' that goes in) Chancery dep age could be an estimate by a clerk, again, 'getting on for fifty.' >or >whether this indicates that there must be two different people here (albeit >with the same signature)? This is not an easy indicator., Either the father could have taught the son to write (we have a four generation run of will making Edmund Brangwins, whose writing looks almost identical) or the same teacher taught both. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society