I assume that there are those in Scotland who are trying to track down their relatives who went to the United States. Just as ages change some in the reports in Scotland, so do they in the U.S. In the reports before 1850, there is a "tick" in a box that represents a five or ten year or more difference in age. One must take that into account. The child would be somewhere between 5 and 10 years old. The adult might be between 50 and 90. That's quite a span! In addition some folks lie. My best find (tho not Scottish) is a great aunt who starts out life at the birthdate I always thought she really was. But then, as a not-quite-so-young single lady living with her parents, she was suddenly listed as ten years younger than that. Two census periods later I found her married and back at her original age. Hmmmm. One does what one must do to remain young enough to be attractive to the local young men, apparently. Others I've seen shift about from 1 to 5 years, tho not quite so obviously as my aunt. So keep your eye open in the US too. Kristy Lawrie Gravlin (Lawrie-Anderson-Taylor-Bane) with (Hiddleson and Ferguson cousins) > > For those AGES in the 1841 Census, did you take into account the instructions > for recording down of those ages ? Anyone OVER 15 was to have their age > rounded DOWN to the year ending in a 5 or a 0. Ages 15-19 would be seen as > 15. Ages 20-14 would be seen as 20. Ages 21-24 would be seen as being 20. > That leaves the door open for someone to perhaps be 35 and report their age as > 34....they'd then be RECORDED as being 30. > > I have a relative who was 50 in 1841 at the census [just had their 50th > birthday], they reported to the Enumerator they were 44...making them show up > as 40 on the census, a full 10 years off their correct age. How did they know > anyone would ever be viewing these same documents long past their deaths ? > > Children's ages were supposed to be the actual age, however I've seen a few > that were also rounded down, the Enumerator did not follow the instructions. > Much better to use the 1851 Census for ages than the 1841 Census but still > must use caution as there were quite a lot of creative ages given to > Enumerators and not always by the subject themselves. Meg Greenwood in > OKlahoma USA > ====================================== > ========================================