Ages in the 1841 Census

[quietman482]

Having been doing family tree research for nearly a year now I had not realised that with the 1841 England Wales Census a practice of rounding off ages was followed by many numerators, such as:

People aged:
* 15-19 were recorded as 15;
* 20-24 were recorded as 20;
* 25-29 were recorded as 25;
* 30-34 were recorded as 30;
* 35-39 were recorded as 35;

The 1841 census was taken on the night of 7 June 1841 and gave the total population as 15,914,000.

Has anyone else come across this?

[gortonboy]

its just one of the things you learn as you as you get more experience in researching,,,,,,,if i cant find someone in a census,,,i always search for + or - 5 years,,,then search for name variants,,,,etc.....:)

[duckweed]

Particularily the 12-15 year olds all come as 15 but also parents lied about the age of their children in later census records when school became compulsory, and of course there are women who lie about their ages and younger men who age themselves and reduce the age of their wife to lessen the gap, plus illiterate people who had no idea of how old they were so the ennumerator just guessed, and the immigrant who lied about his age in order to get work, or the boys who lied in order to get into the navy or the army, and the servants who reduced their age because they didn't want to be retired.