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The blog below, written by our good friend John Marsden and posted on the Manchester & Lancashire FHS web site, addresses ages found in the 1851 UK census, but it is relevant to researchers everywhere who are depending on an age written on any old document. How Old Are You? Written by John B. MARSDEN on 07 April 2025. How old are you? How many hundreds of times have you had to answer this question? Through our lives it has governed when we received childhood vaccinations, when we started (and left) school, when we could first drink, get a driving licence and marry. Then, later, it dictates when we can receive our pension and possibly a free television licence. We are asked our birthdate whenever we interact with government or the health service, whenever we want to borrow money or open a savings account or get a credit card. If necessary, we can prove our age by producing a birth certificate. So we are really familiar with our birth date and have little difficulty when asked our age every ten years when the census comes around. Simpler times But now transport yourself back to 1851. You are a man or woman in late middle age, married with children and grandchildren and faced with the census form. How old are you? The situation 174 years ago was very different. You have had very little interaction with authority throughout your life. The little schooling you received (if any) was not dependent on your age and you started work when strong and responsible enough to hold down a job. Save money? Chance would be a fine thing! A pension? This would not be a reality for another 58 years; you expect to work until you are no longer able, like every generation before you. How old are you? You have never really had any cause to think of this. In truth you don't really know and don't really care. When your grandchildren were born a few years ago you remember your son having to register the births and he got a birth certificate which provided a record of the date, but when you were born, the only record was the baptism register in the parish where you were born, but since moving to Manchester as a child, you have never been back there and certainly are not going to make the long journey just to get a copy of the register entry. You can't ask your parents if they can remember; they have been in the churchyard for many years. You remember that they recorded these matters in a family bible, but this passed down to your older brother and disappeared when he died a few years ago. You'll just have to guess. Perhaps you think back and remember that the Peterloo massacre happened just before you got married and you know that was in 1819 and you would have been about 20 years old then, so perhaps you were born around 1800 so you are about 49 to 50 years old. The form does not have space to accommodate "About 50" so you simply enter "50". What does it really matter? There is nobody who will dispute this. Where is the evidence for this? This proposition may seem fanciful, but consider the chart below. The data shows ages recorded in the 1851 census and is taken from the data transcribed from the Unfilmed returns for Manchester. The curves show for each age the number of persons recorded with that age; men are shown in blue, women in orange. The curves show a population which is substantially under the age of 40 but with a distribution which tails off progressively with relatively few people over the age of 80, as might be expected. But what is immediately obvious is that far from showing a smooth distribution, there are marked peaks at ages 30, 40, 50 and 60 with a smaller one at 70 and a "ripple" at 80. Ages of 10 and 20 do not show the same peaks. This would support the proposition that older people, born before the start of civil birth registration, were uncertain about their dates of birth and tended to gravitate towards the nearest multiple of ten which they felt was appropriate to their impression of their age. It is noticeable that the same peaks apply to both men and women but also that the peaks for women's ages are distinctly more marked

Have a lovely weekend! -- Lynne

Hi, The GU272 Descendants Association invites you to attend our free virtual 2025 National DNA Day celebration featuring Daniel Horowitz, MyHeritage's Genealogy Expert, who will present "MyHeritage DNA 101: From Taking the Test to Understanding the Results," explaining how to use bleeding-edge technology to find your roots. The lecture will livestream on Zoom on Saturday, 26 April 2025, starting at 10:00 am, Eastern Time. Space is limited. Register here: https://forms.gle/t2vArrKbBeo3vUbD8 See the attached flier. You will receive the Zoom link via the email you provided 24 hours before the start of the event. Note: This event will be recorded and shared on the Association's YouTube Channel. Please submit any questions you may have about the event to certify@... . -- Mr. Shannon S. Christmas http://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonchristmas/

Have a good weekend, everyone! -- Lynne

-- Lynne