Strange notation on marriage cert #usa
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Hi, fellow researchers.
I have a 1936 marriage certificate issued in NYC. Handwritten but printed, very clear text. It shows the groom's birthdate as 21 Feb 26/34 and the bride's birthdate as 19 Dec. 25/33 I cannot figure this out. To the best of my knowledge the groom was born between 1913 and 1917 (possibly he lied about his age so he could enlist in the military). To the best of my knowledge the bride was born in December 1914 or January 1915. If I did it right, there is a copy attached. Can anyone decipher this? A thousand thanks. Wendy Griswold Jupiter FL. Searching: BLITZ, PFEIFFER / FEIFER, ELLNER, KOHL, GROSS, ROTHMAN - Zurawno, Stryy, Bolechow DWASS/DAVIS, GARFINKEL - Ekaterinoslaw, Dniepropetstrovsk (excuse spelling) Dniepro WENZELBERG, SHIFULDREM Nowy Sacz area of what is now Poland. |
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Diane Jacobs
The dates are confusing but the first number for each is their age at time of marriage.
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Diane Jacobs On Nov 24, 2022, at 8:15 PM, Wendy Griswold <wendygris@...> wrote:
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Diane Jacobs, Somerset, New Jersey |
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Shelley Mitchell
The number after the month seems to be the year of birth.
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A very good question... I asked someone in the NYC Vital Records this question quite a while ago (as myself and many of my Maternal family members were born there) and was easily explained. When dated NYC Vital Records reflects a Birth in this type of format (in your case) "21 Feb 26/34" just means that this individual is/was "34" Years Old as of the date of the document and provides the date of birth as "21 Feb 1926". I hope I had explained this okay via text... :-)) -- ~Brian D. Kerr, Esq | SSG, U.S. Army (Retired) | SSA, Brigade G1, U.S. Army (Retired) |>>Known Family Surnames (Researching): Dessler, Walk(Valk), Mahler (Maler), Paradisgarten (Paradisegarten), Tomasy (Thomashy), Gluck, Preisz (Priess), Steinhardt (Steinhart), Grossman (Grosman), Sholtz (Shultz), Kaplan, Bloom, Fischer (Fisher), Levy, Baum, Duwidewic, Meisal (Maisel)<<|>>Known Family Locations/Regions (of Surnames): Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Lithuania<<| |
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Diane Jacobs
Brian, the marriage too place in 1936 so
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your explanation so the date of birth year cannot be 1926. Take another look. Diane Jacobs On Nov 25, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Brian Kerr <KerrBrianD@...> wrote:
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Diane Jacobs, Somerset, New Jersey |
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Susan&David
Charles Ellner and wife Sylvia are in the 1940 census, he is 27 and she
is 25. I tried looking up birth records on-line without success. I managed to locate them on FamilySearch.com. Social Security Death Index. I believe the birth dates on the SS applications were given by the applicant himself/herself. Why the ages on the marriage cert don't agree with these is another question. The birth date given for Charles is 26 Feb 1917 The birth date given for Sylvia is 25 Dec 1914 The marriage certificate form asks for age. Nothing else. Whatever else is written, right or wrong seems not to invalidate the certificate. Dsvid Rosen Boston, MA |
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LarryBassist@...
Wendy,
On other New York records they sometimes have "age at last birthday" or maybe it was "age at next birthday" I can't exactly remember, so I think it is really that: Charles was 21 years old on February 26, 1934. If you search for him on FamilySearch we find a military record that gives the same birth date. For Sylvia she would be 19 years old on December 25, 1933. Searching for her on Family Search we find a 1930 census at: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRCJ-CB8?i=34&cc=1810731&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AX4V1-S1W Which has parents Harry and Ida as per the marriage record. It says she is 15. If she was born on Dec 25, 1914, she would have turned 15 on Dec. 25, 1929 and would still be 15 at the time of he census. So I am quite confident of the interpretations I provided above. If you go to a FamilySearch Library you can search the New York birth indexes and would probably find both of them. Larry Bassist |
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Odeda Zlotnick
On other New York records they sometimes have "age at last birthday" or maybe it was "age at next birthday" I can't exactly remember, so I think it is really that:Larry, you're making mathematical sense, but: The license is from October 1936 Why would they have the groom's age in 1934 (18 moths preceding the license) and the bride'ss age in 1933 (almost 2 years previously). My only guess is they had to show documents proving their age, and those documents were issued in 1934 and 1933 respectively. Does anyone know how people's age was determined by the clerk when they applied for a license to marry? As for the age reported in the census -- nobody asked for proof of that, and I remember reading somewhere that many women grew younger from one census to the next. 7 years on the average, or something like that.... -- Odeda Zlotnick Jerusalem, Israel. |
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Peter Cohen
The Social Security records for Sylvia Golub Ellner say she was born in Brooklyn on 25 Dec 1914. That would make her 19 years old on Dec 25th 1933. Her actual birth record says she was born on Dec 23 1915 (kings County certificate # 1184.)
Yet another case of Jews claiming to have been born on Christmas day when they weren't. -- Peter Cohen California |
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A. E. Jordan
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan&David <rosens@...> Why the ages on the marriage cert don't agree with these is another question.
I don't believe there was any verification of the births to get the marriage license. I have seen when the bride was under 21 the clerk asked for age proof or more often a parental consent form. You find them attached to the license files from the City Clerk which are different from the Health Department certificates. I think the Health Department ones were filled out at the ceremony by whoever did the ceremony and that was that unless it was a city hall wedding.
More often then not women were the ones fudging their ages .... but remember a lot of them 100 plus years ago did not have birth certificates. They were born at home or in the old country.
Allan Jordan
New York
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