A Custom or a Records Error?
Johannes was born 06 Mar 1803 in Aneboda, Kronoberg, Sweden; his younger brother Jonas was born 29 Aug 1813. After Jonas's death in 1831, Johannes's birth date is shown in records as 29 Aug 1803. Could Johannes have taken this date to honor - or in memory of - his deceased brother? Was it a Swedish custom to do this? Or was it a clerical error?
Answers
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I don't believe it is possible that Johannes took his brother's birthdate. I am sure that was not a custom in Sweden. If his birth date was changed to his brother's, it had to be a clerical error.
Looking at the household record for Moheda ( https://sok.riksarkivet.se/bildvisning/C0025019_00093#?c=&m=&s=&cv=92&xywh=537%2C2896%2C3205%2C2066 ), it appears that "uncareful" record keeping caused the error. It would be easy for the clerk copying the information into the next household exam record to switch the birthdates of the two brothers, making Johannes" birthdate as 29 August 1813 and Jonas' birthdate as 3 May 1803. (His birthdate should have been 6 March 1803 but birthdates occasionally got changed during a move from one parish to another.) Once the birth date got changed, it probably wasn't noticed that an error had occurred.
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It is not uncommon that there might be errors in records. Normally people did not have an access to those records so they did not have any information what priest wrote about them in the church records. I know lots of cases where birthdays people were mistakenly copied and even mixed.
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Norm & Heidi - Thank you for your replies. Yes, Norm, that link you provided is the messy page where the error seems to have occurred.
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