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Do you have evidence that this is the case? If not it seems like a very big assumption.

In my experience the ages of young children, servants, and very old people are more likely than most to be overstated, but there are plenty of people whose age is understated, so if you presume their age has been rounded up you'll be at least 2 years out.

 

I haven't had a chance, but I've seen plenty of examples of wrong ages in the past, and I'll be writing about one in my next newsletter - which is notable because all the evidence is that the DNB has the wrong birth year.

 

Yes, and when you type 'DNB acronym' or 'DNB abbreviation' into Google that's what it will tell you. (If you know or suspect that something is an acronym, why leave out this vital piece of information?)

 

You're right, leaving out the information that DNB is an acronym doesn't make sense - and that's what I was saying to Bob.

 

Sorry, that was when I was under the misapprehension that the examples were of the wrong date in the marriage register. But I will take a look because having just knocked down a 20 year 'brick wall' I've now got some Irish ancestors, to be sure.

 

But Google didn't do that - you said yourself that if you type just 'DNB' into Google you will get Dun & Bradstreet etc. The Dictionary of National Biography isn't anywhere on the first page of results (it's halfway down the second page, which you presumably didn't get to), whereas if you search for 'DNB acronym' or 'DNB abbreviation' it comes out at the top of the first page.

The reason I didn't type 'Dictionary of National Biography' in full is the same reason I don't usually write 'General Register Office' or 'births, marriages and deaths' in full - I expect most experienced researchers to be familiar with them. The person who sent me the example that I'm going to feature in the newsletter wrote DNB, not Dictionary of National Biography, in his email - he clearly expected the recipients to know what it stood for.

I will admit that it's an abbreviation which is used more in general history than family history, since few of us have ancestors worthy of the DNB, but it's such a key source that it's available free online through my local library and probably yours too.

 

You only have the compare the two sets of results to see that Google didn't - if it had then you would have got the results below.

The usual acronym for Dun & Bradstreet is D&B not DNB, for example they have a division called D & B Credit. They use DNB as their domain name because you can't have an ampersand in a domain name, and that's why they come top of the list when you search for 'DNB', but not when you search for 'DNB acronym' or 'DNB abbreviation'.

I don't expect everyone to know what DNB stands for, but I do expect researchers to know how to use Google. It's possible that in New Zealand you get slightly different results from those shown below, but Bob is in the UK.

 

If you're only looking for your direct ancestors you could well be disappointed - I think I've only found mentions of two of my direct ancestors (excluding the ones who went bankrupt, so appear in the London Gazette rather than the BNA).

But when it comes to wider family I've found a wealth of articles, from speeding fines to bigamy, theft of rhubarb to the apprehension of criminals, flower shows to bowls clubs, sports days to examination results. And then there's the one who was indirectly responsible for the death of a fellow factory worker - that was a particularly sad story - and the one who was charged with handling stolen jewellery but somehow got off (he was imprisoned some years later for an offence he couldn't wangle his way out of).

Almost all of those articles in involved relatives with uncommon surnames, just a small fraction of the total - if only I had the time to search for everyone in my tree there would be many, many more discoveries.

 

Very strange - I had no problem finding the article. Perhaps you didn't clear the search filters?