Genealogy Chat

Please can someone help ?? just got a marriage certif today, right person ,right parents, right sister as a witness but she is down as age 28 but she should be 34 ! the man she married was 31..do you think she lost a few years so as not to be the ''older 'woman ??.she married in 1946..i'm confued but know it's the right person...thanks alison..are the ages/dates often wrong ??

It's quite possible - as with the census, there's a thing about family history, "the information given is only as accurate as the person giving it". She wouldn't have had to prove her age, I imagine and it is quite possible that she knocked a few years off her age.

My great-grandad did that in the census - in 1861 he was 8 months, by 1901 he was only 37! (And he married a younger woman). She might even have lied about her age when she met her future husband so had to keep up the pretence at marriage.

OOPS yes people did lie about their ages and even made up a fathers name on the marriage cert to cover that they were illegitimate .
She may have told him she was a younger age so as not to scare him off!! and carried it through to the marriage cos once said she couldn't retract!

My Mum always said she was born 1908 and when she wanted to marry in 1929 she was just short of 21 when they put the banns in altho she would have been 21 at the time of marriage. She told an elaborate tale of how she approached her mum & dad separately telling each one that the other said was alright with them if OK with the other parent.
Well when mum died in 1980 and my elder sister registered her death I queried her age according the 1908 birth,Sis told me nan had been pregnant with mum when she married so mum had told porkies on her birth year to protect nans name BUT nan had married in August 1909 and Mum was born ,albeit prematurely,in Nov 1909 so she went the wrong way in saying she was born Nov 1908!! Mums marriage cert even had her age age as 21 when she was only 20
Oh what a web they weaved

My grandparents marriage certificate says he was 39 (he was 42) and it says she was 28 (she was 23), so hey presto, a 19 year age gap appears to be only 11 years.

They just lied as many did.

Kath. x

I have a marriage certificate of my great grandparents. They were married in 1915 at Register Office so they swapped their ages!

Because they might be embarrassed that a wife was older than her husband by 4 years.

Very interesting..Thanks so much for your input...wasn't she naughty !!!
Maybe that's where I get my naughty streak. from..the grandma I never knew !!!

Alison