The Power of Estimating

We want our family history to be as accurate as possible, don't we? But there is a lot of power in estimating, when the exact information is elusive. I apologize if I offend some researchers. I think this will make more sense if you read to the end. Remember that in the Church, the purpose of family history is temple work.

Ordinances 
See What information is required to do temple ordinances for my ancestors? (52714)
Basically you need the name, sex, and the standard date and standard place of a major life event. (birth, christening, marriage, death, or burial)

For the parents of some of our ancestors, if we can estimate the year and country, we can request ordinances. If we are careful, our estimates will be close enough.

Ordinance validity when performed with minor errors (52707)
Minor errors of information do not affect the validity of ordinances.

Ordinances for the dead become effective when the deceased person is qualified and chooses to accept them (see D&C 138:19, 32–34). We need to do all we can to ensure the ordinances are valid.  
You can correct the information about the individuals in Family Tree, but you do not need to perform the ordinances again. For example, ordinances are still valid and sealings are still in effect, even if an individual's birthday is wrong, or a name is misspelled, or a place of death is wrong. The individual's genealogical record can be updated with the correct information.


Research
If you can estimate the approximate date and place of birth, you can focus your research on finding historical records that will help you to find the birth or christening of your ancestor, which may identify your ancestor's parents. As we know from experience, searching for: Mary, female, birth date unknown, birth place unknown will fail to find the person you are seeking. But if you can add a married name and some good estimates, your chances of success get much better. Finding Mrs. Mary Aitken, born about 1810 of Carluke, Lanark, Scotland has suddenly become a more interesting task.

If you use FamilySearch with Ancestry, findmypast, and MyHeritage, things become even better,


Estimating
To estimate the birth place, I start with the earliest place the person lived. If there is no place attached to this individual, where were their children born? I start by looking in that locality and expand the radius of my search as needed.

To estimate the parent's birth date, I start with 30 years prior to the birth of the child. For a middle child of a first marriage it is usually accurate within 10 years. Women tended to marry about age 20 and men slightly older.


Accuracy
"While it is possible to perform ordinances with minimal information, careful research for accurate and complete information before ordinance work will help prevent duplications. In the end, this will help accomplish more work for ancestors."

I agree. Estimates are a wonderful tool to help us reach this point.