Questionnaire Text
Questionnaire form
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For all persons
d. Age: ____
How old was this person at his or her last birthday?
Questionnaire instructions
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Column (d): Age
85. 'How old is this person?'
86. Write the person's age in completed years -- that is, the person's age at his or her last birthday. For babies under one year of age, write the age in months, for example '7 months' or '7/12'.
87. Be careful not to round ages up to the next birthday. A child who is aged four years and eleven months should, for example, be entered as '4' and not '5'.
88. Many people do not know their ages. If a person's age is not known you must make the best estimate possible. Avoid the use of 'NK' in this column.
89. There are various ways in which you can estimate a person's age. Sometimes people have documents, such as baptismal certificates, which show the year of birth, in which case it is easy to calculate age.
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90. Generally it is not so easy. Concentrate first on establishing the ages of one or two people in the household. One reliable age may help in working out the ages of others if it is known whether they are older or younger and by how many years.
91. It is sometimes possible to estimate a person's age by relating his or her birth to some notable event. With these instructions is a calendar of events which lists the dates of events in the history of each district. If the person can remember how old he or she was at the time, you can work out the person's age.
92. Some tribes have systems of 'age grades' or 'age sets' from which a person's age can be worked out. A person's age grade may only give a rough idea of his or her age since the same grade may have in it people of widely different ages, but it is better than nothing. Some tribes have age grades for men but not for women, but you can often obtain an idea of a woman's age by asking which age grade of men she associated with, or which her brothers belonged to and whether they are older/younger. Some age grades are listed in the Event Calendars, you can enquire about others from chiefs and elders.
93. If all else fails, you will have to make the best estimate you can, judging by such things as the person's appearance and position in the household and using your common sense knowledge that parents are seldom younger than 15 or 16 years of age when their first child is born, that women do not normally bear children below the age of twelve or over the age of fifty and so on.
94. When you have arrived at the best estimate you can make of a person's age, check that it is compatible with his or her relationship to others in the household. Obviously children cannot be older than their parents; women seldom marry before they are 12 and men before they are 18 and so on. Check these points. If necessary adjust your estimates of age.
95. Any estimate of age, however rough, is better than 'NK' in this column. Do the best you can to report ages accurately.