Fractions or approximations of ages?
I am working on this batch and found ages listed as 5/6, 1/2 and 2/3
I am thinking the ages may be approximations rather than fractions. I would appreciate any input! Thank you!
https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/0ad51b8a-8f36-4691-b20b-6eb1bf8f66ed
Answers
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Because that image is a burial record (indicating the ages of people at their death) and the mortality rate was quite high back then, I would guess that those ages such as "5/6, 1/2, and 2/3" are likely to be fractions, so I would assume that they are since people most likely kept track of the dates in which people were born.
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I think they are fractions of their first year. I would mark their ages a zero since they have not reached 1 year, 7/52 (7 weeks).
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@RLHilton,
Thank you for providing the link to your batch. I reviewed this batch and image of page # 36, age are counted as 7/52, 5/6, 1/2, 1/3. On same image page # 37 : 1 7/12, 1 1/2, 1 8/6.
In term of age we should not calculate or assume. The field help for age for this batch indicates the following: Type the age in years. If fractions of years were recorded, round down to the nearest full year. If less than 1 year was recorded or a child was stillborn, type the age as 0 (zero). Do not calculate the age from other information on the document.
I also found a article of knowledge that can guide you on this issue: How should I index separate age fields?
- If a fraction is listed for the age, such as “3/12,” change the fraction to months (3, in this case) and enter it into the Months field. (If the project gave you an entry for months otherwise it would be indexed as 0 years)
- If it is a strange fraction, such as “1/48,” mark the age as unreadable.
Hope this help answer your question.
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So, we would enter 0 for the ones on page 36, since they have not reached 1 year. For those on page 37 who are 1 7/12, 1 1/2 and 1 8/6ths we would ignore the fractions and round down to 1 year. (1 8/6 is 1.3 years).
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