Tracey wrote:Looking at DavidWW Brick wall post and the link to information reminded me to ask this question
...........in 1841, when each occupant of the house was named. The data about them was limited (limited list of occupations, adult ages rounded down to the nearest 5 or 10.....................So.......... one of mine age on 1841 census is 40 so does that mean he could have been 45 or actually was 40 ? unfortunaltely the 1851 census has a sudge mark where his age would be and he has died by the time of the 1861 census. His wifes age on the 1841 census was 37 seemingly her correct age which was consistant till 1881 census and death cert. So the rounding down didnt apply to all ?
Appologies if there was more of an explanation on the link and i missed it
Wha kens
It all depends on the enumerator, and what he did in the moment that he transferred the info from the individual household schedule to the enumeration book.
If the head of the household had declared his wife's age as 37 in 1841 then it
should have been rounded down to 35 ..........
That written, some enumerators are known to have misinterpreted the rounding rules and have rounded up to the nearest 5 year age !, and some enumerators didn't round down, and some sometimes did and sometimes didn't
In addition, if a 36 year old declared themselves, or was declared as 35 instead of the real 36 then their age could have been rounded down to 30, and that could equally apply to someone of an even greater age who was declared as 35 .........
David
as there are quite a few with and nicely rounded 0 or 5 but also some 3,6,8 and 12 year olds.