[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] varying dates

[Jerry Frank]

There have been some good remarks about possible reasons for the 
errors.  An important genealogical principal is:

"The closer the record is to the actual event, the more likely it is to be 
accurate."

For example, a date of birth on a marriage record is probably more accurate 
than a date of birth on a death record that occurs 50 years later.  Death 
records or tombstone information can be especially bad because this is a 
very emotional time for people when they are likely to provide incorrect 
information.  My grandfather's 1918 death certificate here in Canada states 
that his mother was Rosalie Solomka.  In actual fact, his mother was 
Dorothea Steinwand and he was born in the village of Solomka in 
Volhynia.  He died in the Spanish flu epidemic and 3 of his children also 
died within the same week.  His son is buried in the same coffin with 
him.  My surviving aunt, at the age of 5, was sharing a bed with her older 
sister.  The older sister died in the bed beside her.  It is no wonder that 
my grandmother was too emotional to provide accurate information.

Similarly, a baptism record will probably have a more accurate birth date 
than the marriage record.  If your family kept a diary, then the mother's 
information provided a few days after the birth would be considered more 
accurate than that provided at a baptism a month later.

In all cases, there is the possibility of an error.  In all cases, whatever 
date you use in your own records should indicate the source.  In your case, 
the first thing to check is the source of the information in the SGGEE 
database.  Did it come from a record book or from someone's family 
lore?  If it came from family lore, the tombstone may be more accurate.  If 
it came from a family Bible, it might be more accurate than the tombstone, 
depending on when the information was written down.  And so on.  usw.

Another consideration is the location of the record.  If a person was born 
and married in parish A, then both records you find there should be 
reasonably accurate as the pastor at the marriage would refer back in his 
book to the baptism record.  However, if the person was born in parish A 
and married in parish B, then the marriage record might be more likely to 
contain an error because the pastor could not refer back in the books.

Until you can find an actual birth record or death record, you may have to 
show both dates in your records as possibly correct.

One last thing.  John Marsch questioned whether calenders were readily used 
in the homes of our ancestors.  I don't know the answer to that but they 
must have been used by the pastors and other record keepers.  We know this 
because, in the case of deaths (in Volhynia and Podolia anyway - perhaps 
not Russian Poland), the age is often recorded as, for example, 54 years, 
10 months, 23 days.  In the case of children, they might even add 
hours.  Again there can be errors in this calculation but many of the 
entries are also very accurate so they must have had calenders to assist them.




At 02:45 PM 21/07/2003 +0200, Margrit Weigel wrote:
>I have some "problems" with slightly different dates. After the SGGEE 
>database my gr gr grandmother Friederike Hildebrandt, nee Krueger, was 
>born May 5th 1844  and died May 20th 1937. In the "Wolhynischen Heften 
>Nr.1" there is a story of a tombstone  which still exists in Korist where 
>she lived and died. On this stone you find a Friederike Hildebrandt *Feb 
>22nd 1844 and died March 09th1937. On the same stone you find the names of 
>her sons Gustav (*Feb.02.1878) and Ferdinand   (*Jul 24th 1880). But the 
>dates we know are for Gustav *1877 and for Ferdinand *Jul13,1879 and death 
>Oct16,1904 in Korist (on the tombstone his day of death is known as oct 
>14.1904).
>
>So I am rather sure that here my ancestors are buried. Does anybody else 
>has experience with differing dates?
>
>Futheron, even my father (born Oct 03, 1931) always told that he believed 
>that he had another
>birthday when he was small. Unfortunately there is noone left anymore whom 
>I could ask. Could it perhaps be an advantage to be older or younger in 
>the thirties in Volhynia?
>
>If somebody has an idea, I would appreciate every answer.
>
>Margrit Weigel

Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca