Unfortunately there is no Janet among them.
Not uncommon. Lots of people are missing from the records.
Janet states her birth year on the different census as 1791, 1787 and 1785.
No, she did not. What the census records is
the age the person said they were on census day. The UK census
never records the year of birth. The 'date of birth' listed in census transcriptions is arrived at by subtracting the person's age from the year of the census, and this gives the wrong answer three times out of four.
You should always plan to check the original census at
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk to make sure that there are no transcription errors (very common, especially in A******y).
In 1841 Janet's age is given as 50. In 1841, adults' ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5 years. Census day was 6 June. So assuming that Janet's age at 50 is accurate (i.e. she was aged between 50 and 54) she would have been born between 7 June 1786 and 6 June 1791.
In 1851 she is listed as 64. Census day was 30 March. Assuming this is correct, she would therefore have been born between 31 March 1786 and 30 March 1787.
Census day in 1861 was 7 April. If her age in 1861 was 76, and if it was accurate, she was born between 8 April 1784 and 7 April 1785. As this does not overlap with the dates deduced from her age the 1851 census, then obviously at least one of those ages has to be wrong.
The best you can conclude from the census is that she was almost certainly born between 1784 and 1787.
In my opinion it is more likely to have been 1786 or 1787 than earlier because this date range is consistent with two of the three stated ages. Also by the time of the 1861 census she is more likely to have been forgetful and whoever informed the enumerator could have got it wrong.
However that is speculation on my part!Noting that the eldest recorded child in that list from FamilySearch was baptised in 1795, it looks as if Janet could be an older child whose baptism, for whatever reason, is not in the records.
