William Scott (c1814 - c1905), Farmer at Pawnee, Nebraska

[Rakiura John]

In 1851 Scot Census, William gave his age as 43 [c1808]. Yet the 1858 passenger list for his emigration to the US gives his age as 45 [c1813], and he maintained this approx birth year in subsequent US Census.
Yet his death report states he was 97 [c1807] - which brings him back to the age he gave in the 1851 Census.
This makes me wonder if he gave a younger age for emigration purposes (instead of 45 he was really c51) and he maintained that deception in subsequent US Census.
Does anyone know if there was an actual age limit for early settlers? Perhaps there was an age ceiling for qualification to some sort of state assistance?

[shellyesq]

I don't know if there was any age limit involved in those things, but I suspect it was just a matter of either not knowing or not paying much attention to his exact age.  I've seen the same issue in immigrants who were naturalized and never traveled west of New York.

There is some information on obtaining naturalization records in Nebraska here - https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Nebraska_Naturalization_and_Citizenship  Unfortunately, the early naturalization records don't tend to give much detail, so I wouldn't have high hopes of getting an exact date of birth from them.

[oldohiohome]

Someday I am going to post in the help section of rootschat and find out why I'm not getting the email notifications I should. I click on all the ones I get, maybe it is a difference between using the desktop browser and using the Ipad.

At any rate, I'm glad you found a date of death, and information on naturalization. Some of the censuses ask whether the person is naturalized or not, so you can narrow down the time frame for William. The symbols in the column for one year, I remember are:
Na = naturalized
Al = alien
Pa = papers pending (he had applied or declared his intention and had not yet completed the process).

If it asks for a year when the person was naturalized, don't count on it being exactly right.

Edited to add: As Shellyesq said, the early naturalizations don't have a lot of information. So it might not be worth paying money to get his. A few states have some of them online, but not Nebraska, at least not at familysearch.org.