Family Historian User Group

When I click on a "normal" census fact in the "Facts" tab for an individual, the data entry pane below allows me to input date, age, place, address and a note.

However, if I click on a census fact that is derived from the individual being a witness to a census entry, there is no box in which to input the age.

Why on earth is this?

Hi John

Witness roles don't have an option to include age. There are a number of reasons why witness roles are not really the best choice for census records and lack of an age field is one of them. Obviously I'd recommend Ancestral Sources for entering census records and I explained some of my thoughts on the use of witness roles (and why AS doesn't use them) in this post:

Witnesses when entering Census data

Hi Nick,

you wrote "Witness roles don't have an option to include age" - yes, I see that, but why not?

I don't know, I'm not sure anyone other than Calico Pie could answer that. Although I think it is because witnesses are just secondary to an event and unlikely to have an age recorded, e.g. godparents at a baptism or witnesses at a wedding. I think this is why witness roles aren't really suited to census where everyone is equal, there isn't the concept of people being secondary to the event.

Hi again Nick,

I see your argument and I think that you draw a valid distinction in terms of the equality of participation in the event.