Guardianship papers can be an excellent place to potentially get the age of a child on a specific date. They can especially helpful in those times and places when birth records are not available. Most guardianship statements of age are not as detailed as the one in the illustration which appears to give the date the child turned a specific age. Earlier records are not as detailed but they can help the researcher to narrow down a range of years of birth for the child.
The example is from a guardianship in Adams County, Illinois, in the 1880s. Guardianship records are typically local court records in the United States. They may be kept in a separate series of records or may be recorded with the probate records.
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