Why did my ancestor lie? (Quick Tip 9)

Englishwoman Sarah Baird, on her hundredth birthday April 7th, 1880. Via Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.

Older people often gave the wrong age on census forms. It was common, for example, for people over 85 to overestimate their age. Failing memories obviously played a part and few would have bothered to check civil registration documents or parish records before filling in a census form. There may also have been an element of boasting in the padding of figures. In times when average life expectancy was around half a century, those in their eighties had good reason to feel a little special and adding a few years to their age might well have added to their standing in the community. The report on the 1881 census advised future enumerators to put little trust in ‘anyone stating their age as a multiple of 5 or 10 over 85’. And those stating that they had reached the ripe old age of a hundred were to be treated with extra scepticism.