Married Young!

[Cornish Terrier]

I always thought age 12 was the lowest age ever allowed for the legal marriage of a female.

But it seems I may be in error!

There is more than one Public Tree on Ancestry showing:-

John Rowe married Jane Edwards 20th February 1776 at Gulval

This is quite correct as per the Gulval Parish Register ...... BUT!

These Trees also show:-

Jane Rowe buried 27th August 1843 Gulval

Again - this is correct as shown in the Gulval Parish Register ..................... well ...... ALMOST correct.

What has been neglected is that this Jane Rowe was AGE 70 when she was buried.

1843 (burial) - 70 (age at burial) equals 1773 (approximate birth) .............. at least that's how it worked out when I went to school.

Mind you, we did not have the metric system then! ;D

So dear old Jane, sweet thing that she must have been, was born in 1773 and then MARRIED AT AGE 3!

Needless to say that I have added a little note to one of those Trees indicating a possible error.

[myghaelangof]

Only a possible error CT!
Just having read your note elsewhere on this site about transcriptions, I wonder what the world will make of our ancestry in several hundred years time... Constantly changing names (to avoid the taxman of course), marrying daughters off before they could read and write, and generally trying to confuse future generations.
I do dislike so called genealogists who dont check their info, or wholesalely (is that a word?) copy others info into public trees. This info then becomes so widespread it is taken as gospel
If only......

[Cornish Terrier]

Welcome back Stranger!

I should have updated this thread a week ago!

The one Tree-holder I contacted about this replied to my message the following day thanking me for pointing out the error.

Since then we have been in regular contact and have finally (I believe) 'cracked the case'!

AND - although I am not sure of the 'username' we have another new member on PG.

The response to my message was, as I had suspected, that the information had been 'borrowed' BUT with the intention of working through to check the details.

It was my note that hurried things along.

The bonus for me was that I was finally able to solve the mystery of the identity of Mary Trewheela who married John Rowe at Gulval in 1778!

And I believe I have now also made a mess of a few other trees around the place who are now proved to have the wrong Zenobia attached! ;D

So faith in human nature is (at least in part) restored and there are people out there who are prepared to be proved wrong and who are also prepared to work to find the correct solution to their genealogical problems!

I'm still not happy about some of the transcribers involved in the Census records though!

[londoner]

The trouble with census transcribers is that they only transcribe what they see, (and maybe when it is outsourced they are unfamiliar with the script) without the benefit of local knowledge or reference between one census and the next.
That is why it is so important to submit corrections when we find them.
The Cornwall online census project is a very useful cross reference when confronted with some of the absurd efforts of certain commercial sites.

[londoner]

Having said that I just found on COCP a Glasson family transcribed as Canon so they can get it wrong too!

[Cornish Terrier]

I am more than aware how difficult transcribing some documents can be but in the case of the Census there are more than enough examples of an attitude that screams 'I don't care'!!!.

The latest one that I submitted a correction for is a perfect example:-

The page in question I don't think had so much as a light smudge on it and the handwriting was quite legible.

And on that page was a family of three with the surname BRYANT which I could see clearly without a second glance to be certain.

And it was transcribed as - BRGANT

If this person was transcribing 'as seen' then there is something drastically wrong with their eyes and they should give up!!

This is the type of error that really gets on my goat!