How old does Legacy think you are?

Just in case you have forgotten how old you are, and you actually want to be reminded, or if you just want to understand what some of the numbers mean on the Individual’s Information screen, read on. . . .

The Individual’s Information screen is where you enter the names, dates, places, etc. about an individual. At the far right of the screen, are some numbers. No, they’re not just random numbers that Legacy displays.

The number to the right of the birth date and place indicates the years since birth. If the ancestor was born in 1792, then 213 is displayed. He was born 213 years ago.

There may also be numbers corresponding to the Christening, Death, and Burial fields. The number next to the death field displays how old the person was when they died. The number next to the burial field displays how old the person was when they were buried. Hopefully, the death and burial numbers are about the same. 🙂

If you are looking at your own entry in the Individual’s Information screen, and you would rather not be "reminded" of your age, just right-click on the "years since birth" number, and it will disappear.

Control-A

If you want "to-the-day" numbers of your age, or your ancestor’s ages, navigate to the Family View. Then press Control-A on your keyboard (or go to the View menu and select Age). The resulting screen will display the exact ages of the husband and wife’s birth, christening, marriage, death, and burial events.

Chronology View

Finally, the Chronology View is probably the easiest place to learn how old you were at any event. In the far left column, it will display the age at any event, including births of children, deaths of parents, and any custom events you may have entered such as graduation, military service, immigration, etc. If you are using the historical timelines (new in Legacy 6), the Chronology View will also display the person’s age at the time of the historical event.

Understanding the age can help you catch big mistakes. For example, if, in the Chronology View, the age at first marriage is listed as 69, you might have a couple of problems.

1. 69 is quite old for an ancestor to be married for the first time. You may be missing a previous marriage.
2. You may have a typo in the date of the marriage.

Unless you correlated the ages with the ancestor’s life events, you may not have picked up on these possibilities.