Birth Dating Conventions
Where a precise birth date can be found, this is shown on the website.
However, in many cases, the birth year can only be estimated/determined from a christening date, marriage record, census entry or a memorial inscription - in this case a simple year is displayed i.e. 1797. [Unless a precise birth date is recorded in the original record, it is assumed that a child was born within 3 months of christening.]
Where no definitive information can be found, but a likely birth year can be fairly estimated, the "estimated" year is recorded i.e. abt 1797.
In many cases dates/years of birth are not known and may be difficult to provide such a precise estimate. Therefore the following convention has been used to provide a "rule of thumb" for estimating the likely time period when an individual may have been born.
Men:
- are estimated to have been born between 20 and 40 years before their first marriage (or if this is not known, between 21 and 41 years before the birth of their first child).
- if at the time of his first marriage his spouse is known to be older than 25 years, his birth year is then estimated to have been between 15 years before and 5 years after that of his wife.
Women:
- are estimated to have been born between 15 and 35 years before their first marriage (or if this is not known, between 16 and 36 years before the birth of their first child). This period can be narrowed if the birth date/year of her last known child was likely to take her "upper limit" age over 50 years.
- if at the time of her first marriage, her husband is known to be older than 30 years, her birth year is then estimated to have been between 5 years before and 15 years after that of her husband.