My dad became a cabbie in 1945 claiming he was 18 when he was 16. My wife’s grandmother married a 23 year old man at 14.5 in 1915, the application for a wedding license says she was 17. Lots of soldiers were underage and lied about their age.

Possibly before birth certificates became universal, they weren’t required for age verification.

Any family records or stories of your ancestors lying about age to do something? Know anything about the history of requiring birth certificates for proof of age?

At 16 I bought 4 cases of beer from a country store. The clerk said "Somebody's gettin F***** up!"

I dont know if it was dad or the army but his birth date year was put down as the birth month, birth date was year 1911 month was jan 14th, but that makes him younger??? So when he died they had him at 94 when he was at least 97.



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It’s crazy to think about how the farther you go back in time, the less likely anyone can be sure of their age. In certain times and places people wouldn’t have any idea of their age. Maybe a few moons ago, no wait, it was many moons ago.

I've come across a couple of falsifications of women's age to facilitate marriage under 18, coincident with the first child born less than 9 months after the wedding date.

My ex mother in law was a real piece of work. She claimed to be a couple of years younger after she divorced her first husband in her late 20's. She also hid her 9 year old son from her next husband (my ex-wife's father) until after the wedding. She, of course, was "accidentally pregnant" when they got married. Same with the first husband, she accidentally got pregnant and trapped him into marriage.

The dates around one of my grandmother's birth are interesting. Her father (my great grandfather) had emigrated to the USA, her mom was back in the homeland and gave birth there. It appears likely the real father wasn't my great-grandfather, and their only documented marriage is in the USA a year later after my great-grandmother and my grandmother(as an infant) emigrated. My great-grandmother died a handful of years later, and she was erased from the family. No photos, no documents were kept, and never mentioned in conversations.

My dad lied about his age and got on the crew of a merchant marine ship.
He got busted and sent home when my grandmother called and said, “You have my son.” (He was 14)
Don’t know what age he was when he joined the Army in WWII.

Not about his own age, but I had one ancestor who apparently lied just on principal on the census. The other alternative is that his family had a very liberal admission policy, and members would sometimes stumble into a time machine in one direction or another.

Found out a year or so ago that my mom was a year older than my father, not a year younger like we were always told

My mom said she was 16 and applied for a SS card when she was 14 so she could work at a summer resort job. She came clean with The Man and got it corrected before she was eligible for benefits.

my Brother and Mother did our family tree, and got a lot of info from the older family still alive, family bibles, and county records, mostly census,

think about it, today you get a birth cert as soon as you pop out the womb,

many moons ago, you were born in a farmhouse, or similar, and if you were lucky the midwife or doc may record it next time they were at the courthouse, or the Census taker would record your exisatance and approx age,



another thing that was not always recorded correctly was race,

if a mixed race child, or light skinned person could pass as Indian (as in Native American) or White, then they did,

Dad's date of birth at enlistment, circa 1953, didn't strictly match his actual age. It was corrected in the records right around the time he needed a security clearance.

Uncle seems to have been pretty forgiving about these clerical errors-- and conduct in general-- if you were a generally good soldier.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"

-- Satchel Paige

I had a fake ID.

It wasn't really even fake though, it was a real Montana drivers license. It just had my picture on my brother's "duplicate" license. I thought it was genius.

Don't know of any Age discrepencies but my family arrived as Colonists in the 1600's so I fully expect there were marriages where the Bride was "Husband High". BTW Women generally reach their maximum height at between 12 and fourteen and when a women stopped growing they were often referred to as "Husband High".

One rather amusing tidbit concerns my Maternal Great Grandparents. My sister got into Genealogy when she had to provide documentation of her heritage for membership in the DAR. So she discovered that my Grandmother was born 4 months after her parents wedding. Seems that those in love were "Bumping Knees" well before wedlock in the 1890's, just like today. I will also note that my Grandfather met my grandmother due to contact between my grandfather and great grandfather, they actually were close friends. I will also note that the reason why my grandfather actually met my great grandfather was because when he looked around his home town for girls to date and/or perhaps marry he was related to every eligible female in town. That didn't sit right so he moved.

So look again at those "Husband High" choices and one of the driving reasons for an "early" marriage was the availability of suitable women.

We regularly went to the bars at what is now UNT when we were 15-16 when legal was 18. Guess us girls looked mature in the 70s…

My paternal grandfather lied about his age to enlist in the military during WWI. I don't know all the details, but he served in the Navy and Army during and after the war.

On a recent podcast, one of the guest speculated some of these European that are 120 may perhaps be children passing themselves as their parents for govt benefits.

One of my uncles joined the Navy in WWII just a week after he turned 16. He obviously lied about age, but they had to know he was lying; in his first photo in uniform, he looked 14.

Tough as nails.


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My father-in-law, whose parents came over from Poland in the early 1900’s, lied to his mother, having her sign his enlistment papers to enter the US Army at 17 in 1944 or 1945. She couldn’t read English, let alone speak it. I’m sure she wasn’t happy when she realized what she had done.

My ex FIL joined the army at 16 they found out and discharged him so at 17 he lied again and joined the Navy served 3 years in the Pacific during WWII.

Young folks used to love their country.