I'm a bit of a source freak, mainly b/c I keep finding conflicting information (such as what you're talking about). I generally document a person's age each time I find it -- e.g., my sources will say, "1850 census - age 8; 1860 census - age 20; 1870 census - age 29; Family Bible c. 1849 gives exact date of birth [ha ha, wouldn't that be nice!]." On some people in my family file, I easily have 8-10 sources for date of birth; sometimes they all agree completely, and sometimes no two are alike. You just have to pick the date that seems most accurate. One word of caution: some tombstones are put up many years later, which makes them less guaranteed to be correct than one which was put up the week after the person's death. One researcher told me that her aunt had had a tombstone made for an ancestor, and then later found out that she had her name incorrect. But there it is, engraved in stone, to confuse all future researchers. :-) Jenny ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Gregory" <gregoryc@charter.net> To: <TNSMITH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 9:35 PM Subject: Census vrs records!!! > then i would go with family history and a tombstone any day > over a census but would note the possible error for future > researchers! > > Charlie > > > > > Rosanne Vrugtman wrote: >> I'm curious about the "accuracy" of the Census reports. My uncle SWEARS >> that Henry S. Goad was born in 1840. That's what all the (local) history >> books/reports say, that's what the family history says, and that is, in >> fact, what it says on his tombstone. (My brother, uncle, aunt and I >> toured >> a number of family cemeteries on Sunday and I have pictures!) However, >> the >> 1850 Smith County Census indicates that Henry was 8 years old at that >> time--which would put his birth year at 1842. I've also seen 1842 in a >> number of different places, so I don't know which is correct. Any >> clues/suggestions? >> >> Rosanne (Goad) Vrugtman >> St. Louis, MO >>