help with date of birth

[Paulbrad]

Hi everyone i have just joined family history uk and would like some help on my grandfathers true date of birth.His birth certificate says 27/10/1901,death certificate 27/10/1900,marriage certificate 1903 and army book 1902.Which one would be most accurate.Many thanks Paul

 

[Guy]

In this instance the birth certificate is a primary source and all the other sources are secondary.

I.E. The entry in the birth register was completed just after the birth.
The other sources are primary sources for other events death certificate (primary for age/death, secondary for birth), marriage certificate (primary for marriage, secondary for age/birth) etc.

If your grandfather had siblings their birth certificates may confirm the birth date (i.e. if a sibling was born a few months before or after your grandfather's date of birth then doubts would be raised).
Cheers
Guy

 

[davelambert271]

hi
welcome
to the forum

I would say the birth cert will be correct. The others rely on whoever gave the details, Ages could be adjusted on marriage so the spouse appeared a similar age or they were of age, death -the birth was worked out from the given persons age at death, and quite often men lied about their age to get accepted into he army. etc

May be an idea to check on freeBMD to see when they have it recorded. It will only give you the quarter though

dave

 

[Paulbrad]

Thank you Dave and Guy for answering my recent post. Paulbrad