On September 14, 1832, Henry Bogardus of Manlius, New York, a Revolutionary War private wounded at Johnstown, stood in court to ask for a pension. On that one day he was 69 by his own declaration and 68 by the word of two neighbors. His family Bible gives the year, and in smaller writing, a day. Weigh the four papers from his pension file and decide when he was born.
Exhibit AOpening of Henry's declaration in court, Onondaga County, September 14, 1832. A clerk wrote it out; Henry signed at the end. The words above line 4 were added between the lines. The day could be taken for 16th; the oath at the end of the declaration reads "Sworn to this 14. Septr 1832".
Transcript
[Onon]daga County } ss: On this 14th day of Septem[ber]
in the year 1832 personally appeared in open
Court before Daniel Moseley Esqr Vice
[above the line: at a Court of Chancery now sitting at Onondaga]
Exhibit DA family record page kept in the same pension file. The first lines say when the Bible was bought. "December the 11" and a note about his baptismal name are squeezed in above the lines in smaller writing, and a figure 1763 also stands at the end of the purchase line.
Transcript
This Bible was bought by Henry Bogardus the
Sixth of fabruary the year o[f] our Lord one thou
Sand Eight hundred & five 1763
[above the line: So was [illegible] name in Baptism]
Hendrick Bogardus was b[a or o]rn in the year of our
Turn each statement into a range of birth dates for September 14, 1832. Age 69 means born between September 15, 1762 and September 14, 1763. Age 68 means born between September 15, 1763 and September 14, 1764. "The year 1763" means 1763. The Bible's December 11, 1763 sits inside the year he swore to and inside the neighbors' range; only the 69 misses it, by under three months. A simple subtraction explains that: 1832 minus 1763 is 69, and whoever wrote the declaration may have worked out the age that way. So December 11, 1763 is the one date that needs just a single slip. The January-to-September answer needs both the Bible day and the neighbors to be wrong, the 1764 answer forgets that 68 in September 1832 also covers late 1763, and the late-1762 answer throws away the year Henry himself swore to. Keep the caveats: the Bible was bought in 1805, so its 1763 entry was written more than 41 years after the birth, and the day was squeezed in above the line, possibly later still. Henry said in 1832 that he had "a record of his age at home", which fits a family record like this one.
Turn every age into a range of birth dates for the day it was given, then look for the date that fits the most ranges.
An age in a declaration is often the year of the record minus the birth year, so it can be one too high for anyone whose birthday falls later in the year.
Neighbors who "believe him to be 68" are giving an estimate; here it happens to fit, but give it less weight than a written record.
Look at when a family record was written. A Bible bought in 1805 cannot hold an entry made at a birth in 1763, and words squeezed in above the line may be later still.
Expect name forms to vary: the same man is Henry in court and Hendrick, his Dutch baptismal name, in the Bible.
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