RootsChat.Com

Just wanted to say that I drop in here from time to time because old photos of people fascinate me and I admire the excellent restoration work you all do! Your work has a very high feel-good factor!

Maria

PS. Scouse, I am curious as to what became of this beauty.

Thank you for this clarification, Stan. Bank of Ireland would still use the term "Esq" in the 1980s when the account holder owned land - most (married) farmers were listed " A.N. Other, Esq. & Mrs.  Jane Other" - at least they allowed the wives their own first name that way :-)

What would be the corresponding term for a single woman of higher standing / origin, if there was any?

Maria 

Yes, that's the one I was looking for!

Thanks a million from a lowsy rootschat navigatrix :-)

Maria

I think I go with you, Marmalady.
The way you expressed it sounds clear and logical.

So when he writes
" .....from the time we were in our eighteenth till we attained our twenty-first year"
he started [as team captain] when he was seventeen, before his 18th birthday until he turned twenty-one, right?
Question is, was he so sure or honest about the time frame himself? :-)

I guess this we will never know.

Thank you all very much for your helpful suggestions.

Maria

Thanks for your replies, but  I think the  jury is still out :-(

Often you see age given in death notices as 70 or 54 or whatever years old, and I assume  that this would refer to their actual age before their next birthday after their death.
But often you find "in their hundredth [or eighty-fifth or whatever] year" and I don't know if this person had already celebrated his 100th birthday or not.

Chinese celebrate the day of the birth of a child as their first birthday; we only celebrate our 1st birthday when the first year has passed. After the first birthday a child is in its second year, right?

So I still don't know if "to attain my 21st year" is the same as having one's 21st birthday.

In my research it is pretty vital because the author got married on 1st February 1838, and it would be great to know how long he knew his bride before he married. If he was still hundreds of miles away at his 21st birthday in 1837 and did not know his future bride, it looks like it was a shotgun wedding sort of affair :-)

Maria
PS. Sandymc, I can relate to your story, same humiliation happened to me