Tracing family tree but on grandads death cert 1929 born on birth cert 1930 born how do i know the right one?

Because the person giving the information for the death certificate obviously isn't the person themselves so they may have been unsure of the right date. Out of the two unless I had other evidence I would trust the birth cert more. If this person lived in the US I would look for them on the 1930 census which was taken on April the 1st and may help clarify the situation. Try looking here for the census - https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://hr-search-api:8080/searchapi/search/collection/1810731

The birth certificate was produced/written at the time of the event ( his birth) information given by his parents who should know The death cert information is from an informant who should be written on in who thoughts they knew when he was born...they are unlikely to have been at the event of his birth so it is either their guess, what they were told or an assumption............ So birth cert, his mum would know when she gave birth to him and she, his dad or both registered him.....................................… Add: Just a thought...if these are the real certs the above applies. IF these are internet databases then you don't believe either you check back, purchase the certificate and go from there....internet information is ALL secondary information with few exceptions of images you trustnothing online as true or real

The birth certificate is far more reliable. In early days, MANY persons could get away with lies about their real age, for reasons such as wanting to join (or avoid) the army, etc. If you are talking children, for example..you easily could tell them that you were a year older or younger than you really are...ever see a kid ask for a birth certificate for their parents, until today, when we do genealogy and require documentation?? Info for a death cert is almost always given by a child, when a parent dies. Birth certifcates ARE recorded at the time of the event..it isn't going to be off by a year, unless in the EARLY 1900s when they were optional. 1930 census is the latest year that the census is open (1940 to be released next year). You are going into a new phase of your work. You should be able to find his family in that census..if he was born in 1929, he WILL be listed. The discrepancy in years is going to become standard in your work, now. It is the reason people will tell you to get ALL the records you can, not just one. If you have only one record, it might be the one with an error. Having 3-4 records, any errors will show up, so you have the chance to know that something is off. Another person listed www.familysearch.org. This is going to become a valuable site for you, as it has most census records from 1850-1930 (earlier ones are different format, but still useful).

By the 1920s a birth certificate would have been obtained at the time of birth in most cases. The information on a birth certificate is provided by the parents. Parents would know the birth date of their newborn infant. The vital information on a death certificate can be given by just about anyone and the birth date was a lifetime ago. A wife, child, grandchild, neighbor, or hospital administrator can get it wrong. The birth certificate will be more reliable for birth date.

If is is any help, I find the year is one off about 10% of the time, but the month and day are accurate, when I compare SSDI birth dates to birth dates on tombstones, or birth dates on tombstones to other death records. I'd go with the birth certificate, but note what the death cert said. > how can a death certificate not match a birth Easy. Your mother or father or husband or wife has just died. You have suffered a huge shock. The clerk asks you when he/she was born. You know the family all celebrated his/her birthday on March 15, but was he/she 80, or 81 last year?

it will depend on where someone was either born or died, the date may be the date the death was recorded , not when the person died,people would live far from town and it may be days or weeks before you could get that information to the court house, back then there was no need for an accurate date

I would trust the birth certificate because it would normally be completed by the doctor, hospital, or midwife who would be more apt to have the correct information. It also would be reviewed and signed by the mother of the child. The death certificate information could be given by anyone, a friend, minister, exwife's 2nd husband, whoever.