In Census records, Please remove the units for age when the value is Zero.
Since the recent changes, many census records now show 0 days for the age of a person. The actual record shows 0, and the interpretation should be 0 years.
By wrongly inserting the units as days, the implication is that the person was born on the day of the census. This is misleading, and would cause an unwitting researcher to set the birth date of the person to the wrong value.
For those cases where the value is zero, the units should not be displayed.
Answers
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I just confirmed this issue. See https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M964-MRR.
Ceisel C Lathan age is shown as 0 days, whereas the image shows he was born in January 1900 and gives an age of 4/12 months, the census record being dated 23 June 1900. So, if it is possible to index a record in terms of days, why couldn't the age have been shown as 4 months? However, it would have been equally acceptable to have shown 0 as his age, in line with common practice in many other indexed records applying to children under one year of age.
I did not check if the problem applies purely to the 1900 U.S. census, but if it is widespread (even within that collection) the matter needs to be addressed.
Incidentally, a "similar" issue arose when the GRO index of England & Wales deaths first went online. A child who died at, say, 4 months was shows with a death at age "4". The problem was far from isolated, yet the website administrators seem to have managed to get the matter fixed fairly quickly, as I have not come across the problem from soon after it was reported.
Hopefully, the FamilySearch team that has responsibility for such matters can fix this promptly, too.
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The issue is also present in the E/W Census. I noticed it recently on a family of my research in the 1861 E/W Census. Mary Ellen Gilmore L6VV-3WQ was born 27 July 1860 but is now listed as 0 days in the index of the 1861 census. The census image lists her age as 7 months. She's also lost her middle name, as we have discussed elsewhere.
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I note that the '0 days' is also in the underlying data . She's also lost her middle name in the underlying data. So neither of these issues is just a user interface problem.
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In search results, she still has her middle name. Can't post a screenshot today, but I did in the earlier thread.
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So I see, and on the 'Other' list for Patrick Gilmore for the same 1861 Census entry on Search Results she keeps her middle name, too. Curiouser and curiouser.
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