People lie about their age. When I turned twenty-eight eleventy decades ago, I decided that was a good age, and stuck with it until I was in my mid-thirties. Kids say they’re older so they can use online services such as Facebook. Adults claim they are younger for fear of ageism in the workplace.
And people have been lying about their age for centuries for a variety of reasons. That means you’ll encounter it when researching your own ancestry. So what do you do when you find records where someone’s year of birth is off? In this five-minute genealogy video, I’ll share the questions I ask when I see discrepancies in birth year on different records, and share a couple illustrative examples.
- How likely was it that the person reporting the information knew the facts?
- How carefully have I checked for another person with the same name?
- Do other facts support the relationship?
- Is there a reasonable story for the discrepancy?
I was reminded of this recently, when I broke through a brick wall with my wife’s Palatine ancestors in Pennsylvania. The wall I had broken through was Philip’s line, finding birth records for both his parents and his older siblings in the village of Neckarbischofsheim in the Palatinate.
I knew that immigration from that part of Germany at that time wasn’t just families. Portions of entire villages packed up and moved to Pennsylvania over the course of a few years, and I wondered if Jacobina could be from Neckarbischofsheim as well.
I had an 1804 church death record for Philip’s wife, Jacobina Heyl nee Zeigler, that recorded her date of birth as 1 Jun 1740. Searching for Jacobina Ziegler in the same village, turned up a baptismal record with a birthdate of 1 June 1736.
Same village as Philip Heyl, some date of birth, just four years earlier. This had to be the woman who married Philip Heyl in Philadelphia.
Back to my four questions. First, check the person reporting the information. Unfortunately, I can’t know whether the person who reported Jacobina’s death knew what they were talking about.
Second, check for similar names. I searched for birth records for women with the same name between 1730 and 1750, and found three born in September 1740, October 1741, and November 1742. But the mismatch in months didn’t feel compelling.
Third, I looked for supporting evidence the family immigrated to Pennsylvania, and found that a man with the same name as Jacobina Ziegler’s father arrived in Philly in 1751. I would have liked a little more, but its not bad.
Fourth, was the story reasonable? I think so. I have seven different primary sources showing Philip was born in 1738 or 1739, and a reliable secondary source reporting his birth on 15 September 1739. If Jacobina were born in 1736, she would be over three years older than her husband, but if she said she was born in 1740, she would be nine months younger. Even in today’s culture, it’s more common for women to marry older men. In 1740?
As another example, my second great-grandmother, Mary Shiel Gallagher, was sort of the reverse of Jacobina Ziegler. I know the story of her life from her daughter via my uncle—she was born near Swinford, Ireland, spent some time in Worcestershire, England, and then immigrated to Philadelphia. I have no idea when she was born, with different records suggestion 1844, 1849, 1851 and 1857.
Her husband wasn’t much better, with census and immigration records suggesting 1847, while his death certificate suggested 1855.
My conclusion stops with my first question: I don’t think anyone, including Mary, knew exactly when she was born.
With Jacobina Ziegler, I could use a convincing narrative about her birthdate to associate two records with different birth dates. For Mary Shiel, I have to rely on other methods—namely, oral history and her father’s name—to tie records together. The inconsistent birth years are only helpful as supporting evidence.