Person talk:John Loomis (1)

Age at Death [20 January 2013]

While one year difference in approximating someone's birth year is generally irrelevant, I thought I would follow up on my comment 'ae. 66 typically meant "in the 66th year of his life", meaning he was only 65', for those who are interested.

I have used many gravestone inscriptions from the book Wethersfield Inscriptions, which is available online at the Internet Archive. Many of them follow a formula such as this:

'Here lyeth the | Body of Mr. Joseph | Butler, Who Deceased | Decem'r [th]e 12th 1732, | in the 85th year | of his Age.'

Since someone who is in their first year of life is not yet one year old, then someone who is in the 85th year of life is also not yet 85 years old. Hence, for any gravestone using the formula "in the Xth year of his/her age", the age of the person at death as we would think of it is actually X-1.

This formula appeared to be very common in the 18th century - I must have at least 50 such citations for deaths ranging from 1703 to at least 1847. Many other inscriptions from the same time period (including in Wethersfield Inscriptions) used simply "ae" or "aged" instead of "in the year of his/her age". The question is whether or not it meant the same thing. I believe that it did, for two reasons:

People tend to think in patterns, and if the common pattern of the time was to identify age at death as the Xth year of someone's life (not surprising, considering how many children would have died in the 1st year of their life), then they possibly did so consistently.

Wethersfield Inscriptions includes the following inscription for someone born 28 May 1674:

'Here lies the | Body of Mrs. | Elizabeth Gris | would, Born | March 28th 1674, | Aged 68 Years.'

According to the VR (Barbour collection), she died Sep 9 1741 - that is, she was 67 years old, and in her 68th year. Thus, in at least this case, "aged 68 years" meant "in her 68th year".

Note also that the oldest gravestone transcribed in Wethersfield Inscriptions says:

'Here lyes the body of Leonard Chester, Armiger, late of the Town of Blaby and severall other Lordships in Leistersheire deceased in Wethersfeild Anno Domini 1648, etatis 39.'

According to Find-a-Grave, he was born Jul. 15, 1610 (no citation), meaning that he was 38 years old, in the 39th year of his life. Hence, the practice of identifying age as the Xth year goes back at least to 1648, and is identified by the word aetatis.

While this is certainly not proof that John Loomis died in his 66th year (as opposed to 66 years old as we would think of it), I think it is not unreasonable to treat his age at death that way.--DataAnalyst 13:25, 20 January 2013 (EST)

It isnt, but I've just gone with what the excellent Loomis work has said on it; I dont feel strongly either way and did not intend or even consider changing it back. Usually I try not to buck the sources, especially such established ones such as Loomis, and I advise WR follow the same rule, but this is such a minor point with no way of knowing who is exactly right that I feel inclined to leave it well alone. I inserted myself originally just to comment on the 'age 66' source, which does in fact exist and I added a link to the grave. Daniel Maxwell