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Shropshire / Re: Timothy Clarkson - varying ages struggling to trace him
« on: Friday 15 September 23 09:31 BST (UK) »
Katie, you may already know this but it is something I only learned very recently on a FB group.
It may not be totally applicable in this case but in the 1841 census almost all ages above the age of 20 were rounded down to the nearest 5 or 10 years. It sounds unlikely but just check a page and you will see that almost every adult's age ends in a 0 or a 5. So someone aged 54 would appear as 50 and someone aged 59 would appear as 55.
Not everyone knew their exact age in 1841 so someone aged say 57 but guessing their age as 54 could appear in the census as aged 50, 7 years younger than they really were. Just something to be aware of with differences in census ages.
It may not be totally applicable in this case but in the 1841 census almost all ages above the age of 20 were rounded down to the nearest 5 or 10 years. It sounds unlikely but just check a page and you will see that almost every adult's age ends in a 0 or a 5. So someone aged 54 would appear as 50 and someone aged 59 would appear as 55.
Not everyone knew their exact age in 1841 so someone aged say 57 but guessing their age as 54 could appear in the census as aged 50, 7 years younger than they really were. Just something to be aware of with differences in census ages.