I rarely trust ages or birth dates on tombstones unless the marker is for someone under age 25. Otherwise, the source of that information is often someone younger than the deceased. The death date is *usually* accurate because the person providing the information either was there or has it first-hand from someone who was there, but not many people know the date of birth of someone a couple of generations older than they are.
Example: I know that my maternal grandmother lied about her age to get her first job because her age in two consecutive census reports is consistent with the date in the B-M-D pages of her family Bible but her age at marriage and at the next census is off by the couple of years she added in when she was a teenager. Had I not had the B-M-D pages, I would have assumed that the early census reports were wrong and the marriage license and later census reports were correct. Someone placing a marker 100 years ago may only have had word-of-mouth as a reference. In my wife's family, there are several markers that were placed by a wealthy relative long (20-50 years) after his ancestors died. I know from other research that some of the dates are wrong. Even well-intentioned people doing family research get confused. There's a history of my wife's family that has a father and son married to the same woman - the two women had similar but not identical names. The error may not have been obvious when (if?) someone proofread the narrative, but it is very obvious when you draw the tree. John > Well at least I know I'm not crazy! I use the Cal feature a lot with > tombstones that give age in years/months/days. > > michele > > -----Original Message----- > From: Sherry/Support > Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 2:05 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Date Calculator Question > > Ah ha! That's it! That's where I saw it before. Thanks Evert! > > > Sincerely, > Sherry > Technical Support > Legacy Family Tree > > > > On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 10:29 AM, Evert van Dijken <[email protected]> > wrote: >> If I fill the First Date with 30 Jun 2011 and then I put in 11 years, 5, >> months, 4 days it doesn't add Cal but if I fill the Second Date with 30 >> jun >> 2011 and then I put in 11 years, 5, months, 4 days Legacy adds Cal in >> the >> First Date field >> Evert >> > > > > Legacy User Group guidelines: > http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp > Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp > Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and > on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). > To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp > > > Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
