Background for Esther Beach b 26 May 1850 (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, August 03, 2013, 01:01 (4133 days ago) @ mpowell831

Hi Matt,
glad to see you're making progress.
Yes its VERY common for people's ages to vary. The age recorded on BMDs and Censuses was whatever the person stated at the time, based on what they thought was correct AND what they wanted others to believe... no cross-checking was done, no national/government etc databases in those days.
eg It wasn't considered "proper" for ladies to marry men too much younger than them. They'd often gain a year or two if marrying young, to gain respectability AND satisfy the Law. As ladies got old they often "lost" years on Census returns, eg 39 not 42 etc. Especially in the earlier Census' people's lives were not governed by calendar dates as they are nowadays, especially in agricultural areas where the seasons were key, so people genuinely lost track of their age & even precise birthday; it was only after the UK was covered by railways that Standard Time was adopted across the whole country, for example.
Also ages were recorded differently, less precisely, on some Censuses. This website has good guides to interprete the various Censuses.
http://www.uk1841census.com/intro.php

http://www.mlfhs.org.uk/Infobase/Begin-Census.php

This site has excellent guidelines including age at marriage and ordering BMD Certificates.
http://www.dixons.clara.co.uk/Certificates/indexbd.htm