My dad was born on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the 1940s or maybe 30s. He has an age for the military, an age on his drivers license, and a bunch o

My dad was born on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the 1940s or maybe 30s. He has an age for the military, an age on his drivers license, and a bunch of ages he told people over the years. Mostly bankers. For probably 20 years whenever anyone asked him how old he was he would just say 39. He got a kick out of telling people the wrong age. He still does when he meets a new doctor. Before his older sister died, I asked her how old Dad actually was, and she said he was “about” 5 years younger than her. And her birth certificate just said “September 1933” - it’s possible the date had rubbed off but it wasn’t there. For anyone who has ever done any genealogy work, a lot of the official census dates were just guessed at. Spellings were made up. Birthdays were made up. Kids were made up… hired hand? Count him as a kid. Second wife? Count her as a kid. It’s just some guy going door-to-door asking you how many kids you have and when were they born and he’s getting paid by the number of houses he completes that day. Does that sound prone to accuracy? I have some Mormon relatives and it’s always really interesting how hard it is to read that old scribble from the census and family trees, the official census takers handwriting was often sloppy cursive. And the 80 year-old genealogy worker in 1974 didn’t have much better handwriting. And especially in poor areas the government officials just didn’t care that much about getting correct numbers.