Oh yes, it goes on a heck of a lot. A few weeks ago the paper I work on ran an interview with a fairly well-known British singer. She has knocked four years off her real age and her PR company kicked up a big fuss because we printed her real age instead of the “PR age”. Wikipedia and most other sites give her fake age, but it’s easy enough to find her real age as she is registered as a company director with her correct DoB. 
Clearly being over 30 is a crime in the pop music world…
Isaac Asimov did not know his real birthday - he used January 2, 1920, but that was a guess (he wrote: "“The date of my birth, as I celebrate it, was January 2, 1920. It could not have been later than that. It might, however, have been earlier. Allowing for the uncertainties of the times, of the lack of records, of the Jewish and Julian calendars, it might have been as early as October 4, 1919. There is, however, no way of finding out. My parents were always uncertain and it really doesn’t matter. I celebrate January 2, 1920, so let it be.” )
I don’t get that. A fairly well-known British singer’s date of birth could be verified pretty quickly by official government records available to anyone willing to pay the fee.
In fact, excluding foundlings, people born to parents who live off-the-grid, etc., just about anyone born in the First World in the last, oh, hundred years, is going to have a pretty obvious paper trail. If I ever make a name for myself, and lie about my age, the absolute truth about my age will be known to anyone willing to make a phone call within less than an hour.
Until recently with online records this wasn’t always that easy. It could be done, but nobody would go to the trouble for a minor entertainer not involved in a major scandal. I know someone who went to a school with a US singer and knew her age to within a year, but her advertised birthday was several years later to make her appear younger. There have been questions about the birth date of many entertainers, even though those questions could be cleared up with just a little research.
I know that New York issues birth certificates for foundlings based on a report by the commissioner of Social Services and I imagine that most states have similar provisions.
Not quite the same, but my grandmother was registered after the legal period had expired (hey, she was just a girl, the registry opened only in the mornings and her father was more likely to be awake at that hour after an all-nighter than after a night’s sleep), so the DoB in her papers isn’t the real one - but it’s the one that has to be used when a DoB is requested.
Al Lewis, AKA Grandpa Munster.
Wikipedia says he was born in 1923, but I have read other sources giving as early as 1910. That’s a 13 year discrepancy! The 1923 date would mean he was about 41 when the Munsters began. I have read interviews with him in which he seemed to claim to not know the actual date, or was unwilling to reveal it. In addition, the IMDB says he worked as a circus performer in the late 1920’s, so, at the age of five or six? :eek:
Taliban leader Mullah Omar is a pretty shadowy guy in general. Wiki says he was born “around 1959”. He might be another case of a person whose birthday is known to his inner cirlce but just not to the rest of us. It’s pretty amazing that the guy managed to be the de facto head of Afghanistan for 5 years and get into a war with the US, and we don’t even have a good photo of him.
In cases like this, the oldest date is almost always the correct one. One of William Poundstone’s Big Secrets books deals with celebrities’ real ages. One Hollywood actress (perhaps one of the Gabor sisters, but I don’t remember for sure) had been married before coming to the US. If you accepted her claimed birthday as real, then that would mean she was married at a ridiculously young age, like 9 years old or something.
Time was, his baptismal certificate counted. He lived in Iowa and got a driver’s license there. He then moved to Minnesota, and got a driver’s license there, and, unfortunately, tossed the Iowa license. When he moved back to Iowa, he found that the laws had changed and now, to get an Iowa license, he had to show (a) a prior Iowa license, (b) a passport, (c) a military driver’s license, (d) a birth certificate, or (e) some other document I don’t remember, none of which he had.
The final solution was to drive down to St. Louis and pick up his 85 year old adoptive mother, take her to the courthouse and have her rail away at a judge in old lady talk (think Clara Peller… “WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?”) until he relented and granted my buddy a birth certificate. He was allowed to pick his date of birth.
Charo is a good example of this. Probably born in 1941, claims born in 1951, various other years implied. Would have been 15 (or possibly even 13) when she married Cugat if later dates were to be believed.
But then, isn’t giving birth something that is, well, memorable? Are most of the people who don’t know their birthdays orphans or foundlings, or is it a matter of mom and dad simply not caring and soon forgetting? I wonder if they forget their anniversary. Do people in Pakistan literally call their mom and ask, “Hey mom, I was born in 1982, right? What was the exact date?”, and get a response of, “Sorry son, I’m so forgetful but I remember it was the season that Uncle Akbar got drunk and fell off a ladder, or maybe it was the year after. Oh well. How are you son?”
Giving birth is memorable, but the date might not be. I know the dates my children were born- but I don’t know the days of the week. And there’s the question of which calendar. I’m sure my mother-in-law remembered my children’s birthdays according to the lunar calendar , but that wouldn’t have helped in filling out a form calling for the date according to the Gregorian calendar
Al’s been dead for quite a few years now
I looked up the Gabor sister (it’s in Biggest Secrets). It was Eva Gabor. Her claimed birthday of 1929 would have meant that she was married at age 10. Apparently, her real year of birth was 1921.
Zsa Zsa has claimed birthdays as late as 1930 (on her application for a marriage license with Frederick von Anhalt) but her real birthday is 1917, making her 95 now.
Magda was apparently born in 1915, and was the oldest sister.
My mother always thought her birthday was June 18; that’s what she was always told. Sometime in her late 50s she needed her birth certificate, and discovered that she was born on June 20. But her explanation was that the doctor was making his rounds through the neighborhood, taking notes on births, deaths, etc., and didn’t get around to filling out the forms until the 20th. (Most people were born at home then).
But can’t one do a simple calculation to convert? If mom remembers that you were born on Muharram 17, 1397 before sunset, can’t you just plug the numbers in and churn out a Gregorian date?
Yes, that’s exactly what happens. My MIL was born the eighth child to an illiterate mother in a remote village of India in 1951. Her father was around in the general sense, but not necessarily there that day. The family has narrowed her birthday down to either January or May (I don’t know how they ruled out February, March, and April). It doesn’t seem impossible that even the year could be in question. Hell, she may only know the year because she was between two siblings with more memorable birthdays…
Until about a hundred years ago, pretty much yeah. Since the early century you have had reliable records and most people do know their birthdays. However until 10 years ago there was no requirement in any part of the country to register births, it depended on the province, territory or even the district or county or even the individual, hospital to set policy. I was born in 1984 and my birth was not registered at the time because, I was born in a military hospital which did not record births. I know my birthday though.
It’s becoming rare but for some older persons especially in rural areas, still occurs occasionally.
It doesn’t have to be a remote village or illiterate people. I have papers telling My birth time up to a minute ( 10:53 AM ), but My mother is quite unsure of the birthdays of her five kids ( born 1959-70 ). We never celebrated that much birthdays and even though she remembers some details of weather &c the exact dates are hazy. In fact I was born one day before the independence day and she’s always unsure if it was one day before or after, the other kids don’t even have such reminders.
Also dates aren’t that important to some people. When I was a kid, I often didn’t know ( or care ) what month was going on. Now as an adult I have some vague idea based on the distance of My payday.
I Myself have lots of memorable things happened to Me without any idea of the dates ( one was a snowy day and one on the day when there was some kind of industrial accident on the news ).