Comments on: The Census Birth Date Calculator

By: onthuhlist

onthuhlist — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:47:03 +0000

Excellent article, especially timely with the new 1940 census records released. I actually found an ancestor who was in 6 census records: Four US censuses (1860, 1870, 1880, 1900) and two territorial censuses (Minnesota 1875 and Nebraska 1878). The 1900 census even records the month and year of birth, but this info is either contradictory or dead wrong. So you are right, these are NOT primary sources. Either my ancestors lied or they were just trying to get rid of the census taker…(or else the wife wasn’t willing to give her real age).

Love your app to help calculate a range. This is how genealogy should be done!

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:18:44 +0000

Thanks Chuck. Sorry about that–I went through a server rebuild a while back and apparently the calculator didn’t survive the trip. I’ll take a look at it and get it back up and running for you. Will be a few weeks, though–I’m off to Europe for a couple weeks.

Cheers!
Sean

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:52:38 +0000

I love your calculator, but I haven’t been able to reach it for some time. I get a message that the page cannot be displayed because of an internal server error.

By: Jemima

Jemima — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:59:39 +0000

Hi there, thanks for this lovely tool – I am going to use it a lot!

However what about those who were, for instance, 5 months old in 1851? How can I enter 5 months in your age field? An idea would be to enter 5/12 (5th month of 12 months) to help this compute!.

But otherwise an excellent tool! Thank you very much!

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 27 May 2010 02:37:59 +0000

One other minor correction — the starting date of the range should be the day AFTER the census date. For example, if someone was 5 years old on the 1880 census (census date = June 1), the birth range would be 2 Jun 1874 to 1 Jun 1875. If he was born on 1 Jun 1874 he would be 6 years old on the census date.

FYI, the census date for 1790-1820 was the first Monday in August, for 1830-1900 was June 1, for 1910, Apr 15, for 1920, Jan 1, and for 1930, Apr 1.

I always assume the enumerator followed directions, but of course realize that is not always true–just as the information given by individuals was not always true — people sometimes stated they were younger than they actually were!

By: A Sunday Walk Around the Blogs « Genealogical Research: A Hobby or an Obsession?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:40:19 +0000

[...] The Census Birth Date Calculator describes a nifty tool created by Sean, author of Sean on Family History. Be sure to read all the comments to catch the caveats. [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:47:49 +0000

Oops, sorry Alan. The site was down for about a week without my realizing it. It should be up and working now, including the Birth Data Calculator.

By: Alan Thompson

Alan Thompson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:18:43 +0000

Sorry, just realized I didn’t give you very much info to go on. I am using the Safari browser on Mac OS and it returns with the following message after about 60 seconds: Safari can’t open the page “http://www.famthings.com/census/default.aspx” because the server where this page is located isn’t responding.

By: Alan Thompson

Alan Thompson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:16:14 +0000

Love your site. For the life of me, I cannot get your calculator at http://www.famthings.com/census/default.aspx to load. I’ve been trying for about a week now. Is it me or the site?

By: TMS

TMS — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:17:21 +0000

Thank you for this tool! I’ve been using a calculator for ranges from individual bits of data, but this is great for considering dates and ages from several different sources, and not just censuses. I just used it with an obituary, a marriage license, and 2 censuses, and discovered 1 of the census ages was probably wrong for my person, since the other 3 have overlapping dates and are consistent with her gravestone. Thanks again! You are bookmarked.