Finding the correct birthdate

Question

In the 1870 Census, Catherine (Kate) is shown to be 4 yrs. old, the 1880 shows 13 yrs old, Death certificate and Find A Grave have her born in 1871.  On her marriage license of 1899 she's listed as 30 yrs.  How do I determine which is correct?

Comments

Make sure you look at the originals of these documents as sometimes the handwriting can be mistranscribed.

Can you get her birth certificate/registry or baptismal certificate.

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I haven't found a birth certificate.  The main problem is that if she was4 in 1870 and 13 in 1880, her birth year can't be 1871 which is what her death certificate states and also her Find A Grave.  Possibly she lied about her age later on or there are 2 Catherine Deanes with the same name for her father and spouse.

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I looked at that.  it depends when in 1870 she was born and when she died, if they just went by her age without considering her month of birth they might have assumed that she was born in 1871.  It is not uncommon to be off by a year either way of a stated birthdate.  So 1869 say on her marriage and 1870 when she was born and dying with an estimated birth date of 1871 could all be within limits,   which is what I would want to see the original document to see how the hand writing is. I have seen 1's that look like a 4 with that hook on the top but 13 hmmm?

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I looked at the 1870 census and a younger sister age 2 is also included.

Answer 1

You can not always find an exact birth-date, Look at full date when Census was taken typically listed on top of the page for US Census records.  9 Jul 1870 she is marked as 4, 1 Jun 1880 she is 13 (Her siblings Thomas and Julia ages are switched on the records you linked from 1870 - 1880). Do you have the 1900 Census? Can  you get death certificate for her?

This can help narrow things down, on certain Census records people listed a month and year of birth. US Census records are notoriously wrong on ages a lot.

Now with the ages on the census records what is the range, by this time hopefully you have a plus/minus one for the year. Now we are uncertain of exact year, but closer

Unless  you find Birth or Death with Exact date of birth, then the year is uncertain. Sometime Obituaries can give you the information. or you may find evidence somewhere where an age is stated like 24 Years, 8 months, 28 Days you can then calculate back to a about mm/dd/yyyy.

Also look at the birth years and/or dates of siblings, this has helped me narrow down the proper half of a year when the birth could have occurred.

Comments

If she shows in a 1870 census as 4, she can't have been born in 1871.  Maybe she lied about her age later on or it's possible that this is 2 different people, but with the same name of father and husband seem unusual.

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The 1880 Census has her as 13 which makes sense with the 1870 census

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More than likely she passed herself off as younger than she was at time of marriage. It appears her birth-year is somewhere between 66-68, or about 67, unless there can be found a record showing different.

Answer 2

Hello Ruth,

Sources have less weight the further they are from the event.

So a census 4 years from birth is 10x more worthy of respect than an obituary.

Comments

I agree that a record created closer to the event is usually more reliable than one created much later.

The fact that a young child is listed on a census is pretty good evidence that the child was alive that year. Also, it is unlikely that (for example) a 2-year-old will be recorded as 10 years old. However, children's ages on the census might be inaccurate when the person who talked with the census taker is not well-acquainted with the children (maybe it's a neighbor who says Susie is about 5, when in fact she is 3 -- or 7) or is someone who is careless with details.

Answer 3

The 1900 census claims she was born Sep1870.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6WS9-LQ6?i=13&cc=1325221&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AMS9Q-SC4

If you "round up" that date it would be 1871, however that would not explain how she appeared on the 1870 census in July of 1870.

Comments

I think that many of the census enumerators of 1900 had a hard time doing arithmetic around birth dates.There are many ages that are inconsistent with the reported month and day of birth, and many instances where either the year of birth or the age was overwritten on the census form, probably to force them to be compatible.