Inferred Age

If a record gives a person’s age, remember:

  • The age could easily be off by one year or more.
  • if accurate, don’t just subtract the age given in the record from the year of the record. Someone aged 35 in 1870 could have been born in 1835. Or, if they turned 36 the next day and the year was still 1870, they were actually born in 1834.

Concluding the age is accurate is always something to be done with good reason. I always use a year of birth calculated from an age in a record as an approximation of that year.

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