01/25/2026
Your great-great-grandmother apparently discovered time travel.
Because according to the census records, she aged 15 years in one decade.
Then somehow only aged 8 years in the next decade.
I've spent three hours with a calculator trying to figure out when this woman was actually born.
The 1860 census says she's 25.
The 1870 census confidently lists her as 40.
By 1880, she's decided she's 48.
Madam, that's not how aging works.
But honestly? I respect the chaos.
Back then, your birthday wasn't a national holiday with social media countdowns.
It was just another day you survived.
We obsess over precise dates and digital footprints.
They lived in the beautiful uncertainty of 'sometime around spring when the crops came in.'
Maybe she knew exactly when she was born and just enjoyed messing with the census taker.
Either way, she's keeping genealogists employed 150 years later.
