Estimated birth dates

DeborahCarl

I found a death record for an individual and when I looked at the possible matches, I nearly rejected it because the birth date would have been off by about nine years. I went to the page and I found it was an estimated date with a note from the contributor saying that it was important to put in estimated dates so individuals can be found in searches.

Since this is not the first person I've initially rejected as a match because of the birth date, what does the community think? Do you put in an estimated birth date when all you have to base it on is a child's birth date. FamilySearch suggests searching for children for 30 years after the marriage, so depending on where the child falls in the birth order (and you don't know because you don't have a marriage date or any earlier children), your estimated birth date for the parents can easily be off by 20 to 30 years.

I am okay with estimated birth dates based on age when married, when died, or stated on the birth record of a child because those tend to be within five years, but I don't agree with it based on a child's birth date.

What do you think? I'm open to being wrong.

Thanks!

Anitra Whittle

Hello Deborah,

Really good question and observation.

I might have to see what you are talking about.

I have put estimated birth dates in my Tree based on multiple sources, such as census', family traditions, or the like.

You can enter approximate, calculated, and estimated dates into Family Tree. When I do that, I put in the reason why, my reasons for the approximation.

Do I understand that you are estimating a parent's birth based on a child's birth? Yes, I do that. But I put my reasoning in.

When someone it is off by so many years (9), I suppose I would have to look at other names in the record, if any.

I have merged ancestors where someone has put very different birth dates in, but usually they don't have sources.

I am not sure this is helpful. Please let me know.

Thank you,

Anitra

Paul W

Deborah

I would never add an estimated date based on this kind of information. In general, I dislike estimated dates, as they can be misleading. For example, I often look at a branch of the tree using the Landscape view. This gives me a broad idea of what events I still need to research within that group of family members. To me, seeing, say, "1870" as a birth year suggests I (or another researcher) have / has already established the person was born in (or very close to) 1870. However, upon going to the Person page, I often find "before 1870" to be the actual input made in the Vitals / Birth section. Sometimes, with no sound reasoning, except that records of the person have been found only from 1870 onwards!

The only time I would usually add (say) "about 1870" is if I have evidence of an approximate age from either the death / burial record or census records for that person. 

I have seen (birth) dates inputted that relate to the age of a spouse or the year of marriage (date estimated by deducting 20 or 25 years from the marriage year). But, some of my relatives married a person considerably younger than themselves, or (widowed or not) married quite late in life.

Regarding the death year, "1911" has often been inputted as "after 1911" - based on the person still being alive at the time of the 1911 (U.K.) census.  In one case, I found the individual had actually died in the 1940s!

I can understand users wanting to input a date that might assist in finding an event through the search algorithms, but I just do not see this as being a genealogically sound practice.

As you have no doubt already deduced, I would in no way recommend inputting any dates based on guesswork. Perhaps I am fortunate in that I have never had to rely too much on Family Tree's "record hints", having been quite used to carrying out my research independently (by reading microfilms of a vast amount of parish registers, etc.)

Incidentally, only yesterday did I see changes to a number of IDs on my "Following" list. Nearly all turned out to relate to filling in "blank" fields with estimated dates. Similar to the example you mentioned, I found one estimated event was at least ten years out from what could have possibly been the true year. I unashamedly deleted most of the estimated dates: adding detailed reason statements, of course!

Apart from its “knowledge articles” I believe we are given a certain amount of leeway in how we choose to record data within Family Tree, so I believe you should leave any decisions on this matter to your best judgment. 

Anitra Whittle

Hello,

Well done.

You did exactly what I would do. You looked at the siblings, the  L1H9-6YT children's and then you can guesstimated. When I do that I put in Reason the way I guesstimated it.

Nice,

Anitra

DeborahCarl

Thanks #AnitraWhittle Your response is what I'm looking for.

I'll be specific. Gaetano Piscopo L1H9-6YT This is what was there originally.

Birth about 1806, Acerra, Naples, Italy

Reason This Information Is Correct: Estimate befitting line dates in between empty searches and probable dates (give/take).

Married to Maddalena Caporale born 1811 Moimacco and died 1890 in Acerra. A contributor did a bad merge on the wife, but that is not important to this story. I had evidence that the mother went by both Maddalena Caporale and Maddalena Fatigato.

And there are six children the first born around 1821 and the last born around 1837.

So I found Gaetano's 1847 death record which put his birth around 1791. There is a 15 year difference between the the estimated 1806 birth and 1791. So when I got the result on the Find search, I passed him by because Italians use the same names over and over and it didn't look like a close match - 15 years between the birth dates and a wife born in a different town and died about seven years after my Maddalena Caporale/Fatigati (I know she died before 1883 because she is listed as deceased on her son's death record).

But then I felt I should look at the actual page for Gaetano Piscopo where I discovered that this was my guy, I added his parents and fixed the problems with the wife's entry.

1806 was a really bad estimate because he would have been about 15 years old when his daughter was born. I think what you're doing is fine, a census gives an age so you can estimate the year of birth. But when there are no sources or you're just giving it your best guess based on indirect evidence, I think it is better just to leave the estimate out so other researchers will not automatically rule out a match.

But again, I'm willing to be wrong if someone can explain why a bad estimate is better than no estimate.

Thanks again, Deborah

Anitra Whittle

@DeborahCarl

Nice job figuring all of that out. I'm not sure I follow all of your research, but the end sounds good.

No estimate for time period has gotten way too many searches in totally wrong time periods, for me. So I guesstimate.

Perhaps I will only guess in the search page. On the left side of the search page are choices that limit the search. You can use that to define a range of dates, without changing the person page.

So without any dates I will click on Search FamilySearch on the person page. When it goes to the results, I will put some date ranges in the Refine your search:Deceased Ancestor's Information.

I don't know if this is helpful.

Anitra, mod

I don't know why some of the message is in larger type.