Is it common for DoBs shown on Death Certificates to be inaccurate?

[Guy Etchells]

Even husbands may not know the exact date of birth of their wives.  Depends on whether the wife was truthful about her age.

In the past yes but these days a husband has to fill in his wife's details when completing many of his own "personal" forms, even if he does not know he can easily find out as even things like driving licences have a clear date of birth on them now unlike the "coded date of birth on the old paper licences, also her medical card and of course passports. All things a person is advised to take wbhen registering a death. That does not mean he will remember correctly when if he registers her death but the possiblilty is higher than 40 or 50 years ago
Cheers
Guy

PS I am referring to the process in the UK.

[ALAMO2008]

I always Warn Researchers to never Believe
Dates of BIRTHS on the 1939 Register ever and allow your Ancestry Dates to be wrongly updated by it.
In my Experience the 1939 Register Dates are only 60 %  Accurate completed by the visiting Enumerator for some reason.

[ALAMO2008]

My Mother In Law always celebrated her Birthday for 81 years = 28th May
Being interested in Researching our Family Ancestry
I sent for her Full Birth Certificate
To find she was born at home in Toxteth on 29th May 1920 not 28th

[PrawnCocktail]

My grandmother's death was registered by her sister, my great aunt. When asked for date of birth by the registrar, she knew the birthday, and told them what she thought the year was, only realising when she got home that she'd been wrong. She knew my grandmother would have been 85 that year (1971), and subtracted 85 from 1971 - but Grandma hadn't got as far through the year as her birthday. Came from her shock at finding her sister dead in bed unexpectedly.

So now I can tell on Ancestry who knew when her Dob was, and who has taken it from the Death index!

[Elastik]

Many thanks for all these helpful replies. In this case I think it's possible the lady in question may have not been honest about her birth year. It's only 2 years out, but as far as I can see she was actually 2 years older than the DoB on her death certificate. Who knows. Maybe she'd told her prospective husband she was younger than she was & never got round to correcting this. I have what I believe is her birth certificate. I'm waiting for the marriage certificate. My guess is that the discrepancy will appear again on the marriage cert. Anyway, thanks again.

[Girl Guide]

I have an ancestor who was ten years older than her husband but to look at their marriage certificate you wouldn't think that.  Ladies who were older than their husbands quite often knocked a few or more years off their age.

Lies about age are only too prevalent, even the men would adjust their age either up or more likely down.

[AntonyMMM]

As a point of interest, if there is a discrepancy between what the informant gives as the deceased's date of birth ( or any other bit of information)  and what any supporting documents might show (like a birth certificate), it is the what the informant says that takes precedence and should be recorded.

[Deirdre784]

I have a handful of ancestors with correct (matching birth certificate) day and month of birth but wrong year (generally a year or two out), and a few where the year is correct but the actual date is out by a few days. Does make family history a bit more of a challenge, especially if searching common names.

[Peter L. Mitchell]

Lots of really good suggestions here.

I have several death certificates that don't match the facts, and as other contributors have said there can be lots of causes of this. Transcription errors can occur, but I suspect that the biggest cause is that the information is required at a highly emotional time.

The most challenging issue I have had was four ancestors (GGG and GGGG grandparents) in the same family whose death certificates stated that they were 16 years old when they married. After a great deal of research I found that the parish records for both marriages show that they were in their mid-20s at the time. The only explanation I can think of is that it might have been some sort of family joke and the informants believed it?

What this has taught me is the value of cross-checking using as many sources as you can. It's tedious, but can give you more accurate information. It has also demonstrated to me that it is potentially invaluable to leave our own detailed "trail". Someone in the future might want to know!

Peter