* details on census returns

[andrewbraid]

I have often thought that it would be useful if FH had an additional qualifier for a date of birth, namely 'Derived from Census data' or something similar.

I never know, when census data is the only source of a birth event, which of the three existing qualifiers to use. For consistency I always use 'Calculated' but I also use this when a birth date is worked out from an age at death and the latter is generally, but not always, more reliable (at least there is only a single event to calculate it from).

However, I suppose that such an idea would not conform with the GEDCOM Standard. Pity.

[jmurphy]

I use 'estimated' for dates that are flat-out guesses. If it involves a sorta-kinda rule of thumb, like assuming someone was born around 20 years before child #1 is born, that's an estimate.

I use 'calculated' for all birth years and other dates which are (or might have been) back-calculated from actual ages, including census records, draft records, passenger lists, obituaries, or death certificates / MIs as you describe above. If I've gathered up someone's search results, tossed it into an Excel spreadsheet, and used that to figure out an event year, it's calculated.

I use 'approximate' for things like residence events which are taken from City Directories, to remind myself that there is a lead-time in producing printed books -- while I do know the publication year, I don't know exactly when the publishing company collected the information for any given entry.

Whatever you do, I encourage you to make a note, and write down your thoughts about the accuracy of the data.

In principle, one can assign a quality rating to a source, but I find this not useful in practice because not all information in one source will be of the same quality. A death date and location is likely to be accurate on the death certificate, but the birth date, not so much.

Jan