Roll of Coal Miners, 1841

Note: In the 1841 census enumerators were expected to round down ages over 15 to the nearest multiple of 5. For example, a person aged 19 should be listed as 15, a person aged 21 should be listed as 20 and a person aged 47 should be listed as 45. In practice some enumerators either did not bother to round down or only rounded down for higher ages, such as those aged over 20 or, less frequently, rounded down ages below 15. Normally, the age of someone under 15 is usually accurate within a year or two.

For persons over the age of 15, whose age is a multiple of 5, they may be up to 4 years older than their census listing shows. For example, a person listed as 45 could be between the ages of 45 and 49. This does not account for errors made by enumerators or family members reporting their ages incorrectly. If the age of someone was unknown then children were supposed to be recorded as ‘under 20’ and adults as ‘over 20’.

For persons over 15 any age that is not a multiple of 5 is likely to be accurate. For example, if a person is listed as 38, then that person probably is 38.