Guessing a Date: Difference between revisions

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Latest revision as of 18:55, 26 April 2020

How to Guess Where to Start

Guessing a Date

How should I estimate dates when documenting an event in an ancestor's life?

Use the following guidelines:

Use the dates you already know to help narrow your search for additional records.
When possible, find each family member in all available records such as birth, marriage, and death, censuses, court, military, and other events recorded during their lifetime. This may help narrow the number of years when certain events may have happened.
When you are trying to find the next generation back (i.e. your grandfather's father), and the birth dates of most of the children are not known, allow for a 20 to 40-year window prior to the youngest child’s birth.
Calculate approximate birth years from the age found on the censuses or other documents. See Skillbuilding: Date Calculations.
It has been noted that in America and northern Europe men usually married around the age of 25, and women around the age of 21. However, this is only an average with widespread variation from place to place.
On average, the first child was born within one year of the parent’s marriage. Subsequent children were usually born about two years apart.
If you know when each child in the family was born, estimate the marriage date to approximately 1 year before the birth of the first child. This is usually a fairly accurate guess, however, be sure you made a thorough search for all children born to that family.
Generally, brothers and sisters who died of old age were most likely to die at roughly the same age. This may be helpful when looking for death records, however, it is better not to record such an average date as fact, especially on community trees such as FamilySearch Family Tree.

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-[[How to Guess Where to Start|How to Guess Where to Start]] [[Image:Gotoarrow.png]] [[Guessing_a_Date|Guessing a Date]] <br>
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-How to estimate the date when documenting an event in an ancestor's life. Use the dates already on the family group record as a guide.
+== How should I estimate dates when documenting an event in an ancestor's life? ==
-In order to document an event a researcher must sometimes guess the date when the event happened. Look at the dates already shown on a family group record to identify the most likely dates of additional events.
+=== Use the following guidelines: ===
-When you can find no other clues, use the following guidelines to help estimate dates. These guidelines are only approximate and researchers must allow leeway in individual cases.
+*Use the dates you already know to help narrow your search for additional records.
+*When possible, find each family member in all available records such as birth, marriage, and death, censuses, court, military, and other events recorded during their lifetime.  This may help narrow the number of years when certain events may have happened.
+*When you are trying to find the next generation back (i.e. your grandfather's father), and the birth dates of most of the children are not known, allow for a 20 to 40-year window prior to the '''youngest''' child’s birth.
+*Calculate approximate birth years from the age found on the censuses or other documents. See [http://bcgcertification.org/skillbuilding-date-calculations/ Skillbuilding: Date Calculations].
+*It has been noted that in America and northern Europe men usually married around the age of 25, and women around the age of 21. However, this is only an average with widespread variation from place to place.
+*On average, the first child was born within one year of the parent’s marriage. Subsequent children were usually born about two years apart.
+*If you know when each child in the family was born, estimate the marriage date to approximately 1 year before the birth of the first child. This is usually a fairly accurate guess, however, be sure you made a thorough search for all children born to that family.
+*Generally, brothers and sisters who died of old age were most likely to die at '''roughly''' the same age. This may be helpful when looking for death records, however, it is better not to record such an average date as fact, especially on community trees such as FamilySearch Family Tree.
-*Look up each family member in all the censuses and directories during their lifetimes to learn their ages, or help narrow the number of years when certain events may have happened. [[Adding a Custom Event to a PAF Family Group Record|Add a custom event to the family group record]] for each census or directory you find; this helps you estimate dates for other events.
+==== Related Content  ====
-*"When you are trying to find the next generation back (i.e. your grandfather's father or further), It may be good to allow a 20 to 25 year period to root around.
-*Calculate approximate birth years from their age on the census or other documents.
-*In America and northern Europe men usually married at about age 25, women at about age 21. This may need to be adjusted slightly for different cultures.
-*On average, the first child is born one year after the parent’s marriage. Subsequent children are usually born about every two years.
-*Generally, brothers and sisters who die of old age are most likely to die at '''''roughly''''' the same age.
-=== Related Content  ===
 [[How to Guess Where to Start]]
+<br><br>
-{{H-langs|en=Guessing a Date|es=Cómo calcular fechas|pt=Supor uma Data}}
+[[es:Cómo calcular fechas]]
+[[pt:Supor uma Data]]
 [[Category:Beginners]]