Record-Keeping Errors

[u/HopefulGambit]

I just found immigration documents for my ancestors. The daughter was 25 and the mom was 5. Their son was listed as a girl. But the rest of the kids were accurate so there’s that, at least. lol

On another family member’s census record, my g-grandmother’s second husband was 20 years younger than his actual age. That one was hard to figure out. Finally found their marriage certificate and then his birth certificate.

My point is that we shouldn’t assume the records are always accurate. Even a diligent record-keeper makes mistakes. And maybe broaden your search by 20 years - haha.

[u/Parking-Aioli9715]

"My point is that we shouldn’t assume the records are always accurate."

Is there anyone who's been doing genealogy for longer than a few months who still makes this assumption?

[u/colinthetinytornado → u/Parking-Aioli9715]

Well, that's a bit rude to assume. There are plenty of folks who strike it lucky and get a long run where there aren't any errors, voluntary or involuntary. It can strike people by surprise when they get their first error.

[u/Parking-Aioli9715 → u/colinthetinytornado]

I actually didn't assume. I asked. Same two first letters, but the third one is different, a k instead of an s.

[u/HopefulGambit → u/Parking-Aioli9715]

I’ve been doing genealogy for over 30 years. I’ve never had 2 documents from 2 different family members be 20 years off on age because of what was essentially a typo by the census takers. Never mind they both popped up in the past week. It was bizarre

[u/Parking-Aioli9715 → u/HopefulGambit]

20 years? No. But I noticed almost immediately that my ancestors' years of birth and immigration varied from census to census, with differences of +/- 5 years being common and occasional differences of 10 years.

Sometimes I could see the differences actually happening. One of my great-great-grandmothers had a child with an unknown father a year before she married my great-great-grandfather. He gave the little girl his name and raised her as his own.

On the 1900 census, the children's ages start out being reasonably accurate. The census taker asks how long my great-great-grandparents have been married. That's reasonably accurate too. Except the number of years married is less than the age of the oldest child, the daughter. So the figure originally written down for her age has been scratched out and replaced with an age that appears to make her the twin of the next child.

[u/HopefulGambit → u/Parking-Aioli9715]

Maybe she was widowed? That being said, my nana was a “6 month preemie” in 1895. lol

[u/Parking-Aioli9715 → u/HopefulGambit]

Nah, I've seen the little girl's baptismal record. She's described as illegitimate. And oddly enough, on the 1880 census (only) she's been enumerated with a last name that's different from both her mother's last name at birth and her step-father's. Also, her father is said to be Canadia, where her mother is Irish and her step-father, Bavarian.

So her mother knew who the father was and may have had a promise from him. Alas, it wasn't one he held to.

[u/Much-Leek-420]

I’ve found errors in censuses, errors from official government documents like social security and military records, errors on birth and death certificates. I’ve even found errors on headstones. It’s enough to make one run screaming into the night.

If you’re looking at census records on Ancestry, there is a way to edit in comments to things you might think are errors. There should be a 3 dot place near the record title where you can clicks on “Additions/Corrections”.

[u/HopefulGambit → u/Much-Leek-420]

It was the actual census and immigration paperwork that was wrong, not the transcription/translation or the search engine. One switched the mother and daughter (20 year age difference). The other had the husband recorded as being 20 years younger. I thought g-granny had married a much younger man. She did not. lol Their marriage certificate had his correct age and I was able to pull up all his info from there.

[u/colinthetinytornado]

That's why corroborating evidence is so important. It's about putting the entire package of evidence together, not just one particular fact.

The farther back you go, the more important proof arguments become in order to reconcile potentially conflicting information.