Self misreporting is also found on the US passenger Lists, Passport Applications, and the SSDI (which used old documents). One of my ancestors, born in 1880, got younger and younger from 1910 until 1940, reporting her birth year on successive documents as 1882, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1890, and 1891. I hope I am still alive to discover what she told the 1950 census taker.
Death certificates are not to be trusted either. Her son's birthday was misreported on his death certificate by his caretaker. CE > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Re: Census event vs source > Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:03:31 -0700 > > The census reports are replete with all sorts of incorrect and misleading > information. Typical of most was the incorrect reporting of ages; for > example, if a census was taken on April 1, and a child's 5th birthday was on > April 30, but the enumerator did not make it around to the house until June, > the child's age was sometimes incorrectly recorded as 5 instead of 4. And > then you have the social phenomena of most women understating their age by > several years. It's just the way they did things back then. > > Brian in CA 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://support.legacyfamilytree.com 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
