What was going on in Ireland at beginning of the 20th century (1901, specifically) that might have encouraged my great-great-grandparents to give their children's ages as consistently 3-5 years younger than reality for the 1901 Census of Ireland?

by CaptainVellichor

More context:

I've been doing a little digging into my Dad's family history, and I'm pretty sure I have located my great-great-grandparents' entry on the Census of Ireland, 1901 as the names match what we have for other documents and the relative ages are correct (i.e. oldest to youngest seems in order).

However, it gets weird real quick: all of their children (that I have thus far found birth or baptism records for [edit: sourced from digitised church and civic records available online]) seem to be between 3 and 5 years older in reality than the ages given on the census. What I've found so far:

  • The eldest, John, was born in 1876, which would have made him 25 rather than the 20 years recorded on the census
  • my great-grandfather Michael was born in 1879, which would have made him 22 rather than 17
  • Younger sister Catherine was born in 1881, which would have made her 20 rather than 16.
  • Younger brother Dan was born in 1886, which would have made him 15 rather than 11
  • Younger sister Hanora was born in 1888, which would have made her 13 rather than 10.
  • Younger sister Margartet was born 1889, which would have made her 12 rather than 8.

Why would they do this?? My family is intrigued, but we're all Australians and none of us are even amateur historians. Our extremely uninformed questions thus far are:

Was it just a family record-keeping error? Was it usual for ages to be a bit loosey-goosey in early C20 Ireland? Was there something going on that would have made it expedient for only one son to be thought "adult"? Would there be some benefit to having younger children (support or welfare)? Were they fae, and disguising their slower ageing?

Some additional facts, if context helps:

  • my great-grandfather was not necessarily the straightest arrow in the quiver, so shonky is not entirely outside the realm of possibility for this family
  • My great-great grandfather was one or both of farmer and cattle dealer, depending on when you look at the records
  • The whole family lists Cork City as their birthplace, and residence is given in various places in and near Cork City in the records I've found so far.

I'm still hunting down records for the youngest (age given as 6 on the census), and a brother listed as 16 alongside Catherine. I'll update with their details if/when I find them if that would be helpful.

horsepills

Ages in the 1901 and 1911 Census records are often exaggerated or understated depending on what state benefit the family might be trying to exploit. For example in this research paper, the author claims that ages for older men were largely exaggerated in 1911 in order to qualify for the old age pension which was started in 1909source .

For your family, it's not certain, but declaring two under age children would probably have qualified the family for child benefits that wouldn't have been available for young adults.

For more a detailed discussion of age misrepresentation see:

Budd, John W.; Guinnane, Timothy. 1992. “Intentional age-misreporting, age-heaping, and the 1908 Old Age Pensions Act in Ireland,” Population Studies, 45(3): 497-518.