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

[Carolyn Schott]

You know - this is actually one of the things that bothers me about my
specific entry!  My g-grandmother would have been 16 at the time, but it
appears that her age is listed as being 9.  It seems difficult to believe
that a 16-year-old could have passed as a 9 year old!  

But I've searched a bit through the village church records, and it doesn't
appear there were any other siblings (of her in-laws) with her name about
age 9 that it might have been instead of my g-grandma.  But since ALL the
ages are off - it's hard to be certain.

And this ship's list has no other info to match up as another person
suggested.

Sigh...

Carolyn

>Message: 3
>Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:29:09 -0800
>From: Jack Leigh <jack.leigh at shaw.ca>
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lying about age on ship's passenger
>	list
>To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
>Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20061129152909.00b17de8 at shawmail>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>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