When reviewing records on an ancestor it’s an integral part of the genealogical analysis to consider how old the ancestor was when they are appearing in various records, going through personal life events, experiencing national events, and the like. It’s important because age is one way we can determine whether or not we are likely to have the right person in a genealogical record.
Whenever you find an ancestor named in a document, do you ask yourself how old they were at that point in time? Is their age atypical for someone who usually appears on that type of document (a sixty year old woman having a child, an eight year old getting married, a ninety year old signing a mortgage, a sixty year old man enlisting in the service, etc.)?
I was reminded of the importance of this while reviewing a Mexican War pension for a veteran who died in California in 1912. For a brief moment, I was afraid he might have been too young to have actually enlisted, but a review of the material indicated he was nineteen when he enlisted in 1846. Doublechecking an age can be a quick way to catch some errors.
Knowing that age on a date can help give us some personal perspective on our ancestor and the events in their life as well. And that’s never a bad thing.
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