Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Sorry ive asked for help on this on another message board without reply, (no dundalk forums)
its to do with my great grandmother
Bridget Doyle, who came over from Dundalk but who i havent been able to trace.
I'm 80% sure its just because she never gave her correct age.....

she first appears in the 1891 census in Liverpool as a 17 year old housemaid from Dundalk, however her year of birth varies from 1874-1876 on 1901 and 1911 census, and death certificate. Her marriage certificate lists her father as John Doyle, Labourer. her year of birth would make it about 1875 on here.

I have found would be a perfect match on the irish catholic register and also GRO of ireland entry 3/5/1872 born to a John Doyle, labourer. st marys terrace, Dundalk.
So what I'm thinking is that she's always lied about her age all her life, or she genuinely didn't know (which i dont believe).
The other plausable option is that the birth was just never recorded and the family were travellers or something but seems unlikely.
She claims to be 17 in 1891 on the census (or to the family she lived with) when she was nearly 20. And her husband was 25 she would be 24 but claimed to be 21.

is women (or men) lying about age something which went on?
i cant see the logic in this case but it would clear my brickwall up

cheers
Luke

I think Bridget's age was reasonably consistent, 1901, 1911, and marriage, only one year different for birth year.

There was no reason to give the wrong age on her marriage certificate, having reached an age were no parental permission to marry was needed.

The 1911 census is likely to be accurate having been filled in by the householder, if they were able to do so.

Previous census' the householder if able filled in the Householders Schedule which the Enumerator copied into the Enumerators Book, transferring that information could lead to possible mistakes.

The trouble with servants and ages, 1891 census, we never really know if its the correct person, with not being with family members and would the family they are with know accurately their age, possibly not.

The other point about servants in a census is that we don't know who gave the information and whether she was specifically asked or if somebody took a guess and put that down.

If your finds are in Dundalk and they match with what you know of her birthplace, then you are more than half way there, especially as the father's details are the same.

.....

i KNEW it, cant be 100% but someone who is a distant DNA match has a tree with the same family.
I'll never know why she lied about her age i can only guess she thought being younger gave her some advantage.
That was really bugging me.

We'll never know why they did anything - and also why they didn't tell us either