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From: "Carol Simpson" <>
Subject: Tip of the Day
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 19:45:50 -0800


Greetings all,

I so enjoy Teresa's "Tip of the Day" and finally have something that I thought I should share!

Like you (I am sure), I have many birth dates that are estimates based upon ages from a combination of sources like censuses, military records, tombstones, and vital records of marriages, births of children, and death. I add all sources to the birth tag, but I like to see them all listed in order, without having to check the CD of each one. This allows me to see patterns and make a "best guess" based on the majority. So everytime I add a source that shows an age, I also enter it in a list in the memo of the birth tag.

Here is an example:
1850 census = 21 = <1 June 1829
1856 vitals (m) = 26 = <4 Mar 1830
1860 census = 30 = <1 June 1830
1870 census = 41 = <1 June 1829
1880 census = 51 = <2 June 1829
1900 census = 70 = May 1830

I enter them chronologically according to the date on which the age was given. I include vital records of the subject's marriage (m), death (d), and births of children (b). I used to include the child's name ("b of Thomas"), but I like each entry to be short so they usually don't wrap in the memo and are easy to read without opening the memo seperately. I try to keep them all about the same length so that I can easily skim the estimated dates on the far right. I used to put the year's date range (i.e. "1 June 1828 - 31 May 1829"), but I wanted it shorter and found it confusing. So I went to using the "less than" designator to indicate the year before a date (i.e. "<1 June 1829").

Some are longer and more involved, like this one:
1850 census = 22 = <1 June 1828
1860 census = 34 = <1 June 1826
1860 vitals (m) = 22 = clearly in error (maybe should be 32?)
1861 vitals (b) = 34 = <28 Sep 1827
1862 enlistment (CSR) = 30 = <6 Aug 1832
1866 vitals (b) = 28 = <7 Aug 1838
1870 census = 46 = <1 June 1824
1880 census = 52 = <2 June 1828
1886 vitals (m) = 54 = <22 Sept 1832
1888 pension + app = 58 = <31 Oct 1830
1891 vitals (d) = 63 = <14 Sept 1828

This really helps me to analyze data, and I thought the idea might help someone else!

Carol Simpson
Homer, Alaska

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