[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lying about age on ship's passenger list

[Jack Leigh]

This is a subject I've often wondered about.

My grandparents, and their two children, my father and his sister, all have
their ages recorded incorrectly on their return to Canada from a trip
"home" to England in 1914.

At the time, their ages were 35, 38, 8, and 4 for my grandfather,
grandmother, father, and aunt respectively.  The passenger list records
them as 37, 35, 12, and 11.

My grandfather was a Minister in the Anglican Church of Canada and I know
he would have had a hard time being dishonest, the family was literate, and
the English language wasn't a problem since they were all English/Canadian.
 But perhaps they wanted my grandmother to be known as younger than her
husband.  However, I can't think of any advantage in having the children's
ages recorded as so much older than they were, nor can I see how anyone
would be fooled by a four year old being passed off as eleven.

All the rest of the information in their passenger entries is correct.

So my only explanation is just plain human error in recording.

                          ......... Jack