Characters Ages. I need a little help here.

[MagnusTrask]

Barnabas was of course something like a century and a half old in 1967.    Talking about his age in 1967 is pointless.   He clearly looked middle-aged though.   In 1795 he was considerably younger than middle aged, thanks to some skillful youthing.   I think his minimum age in 1795 was 30.

[retzev]

Wasn't he supposed to have been 27?

[retzev]

Wasn't he supposed to have been 27?

I somehow read the second page of this thread thinking it was the first. Anyway, I remember reading somewhere that Barnabas was 27 when he was cursed, but I can't say where. I think I'd like that better, he can be in the "27 Club ."

[Miranda]

They say in 1795 that Barnabas and Jeremiah were nearly the same age, based on Jeremiah's gravestone that makes them both 32, I don't think JF could pass for younger than that, though he did look younger in the flashback.

Angelique is 21, as Nicholas later says she was born in 1774, so I assume Josette was, too.

As for Naomi, I guess we can assume she was in her late teens when Barnabas was born, and that Sarah was a miracle, change of life baby, as was she not 10 in 1795??

Not sure about the ages of the modern day Collinses..

[GooberCollins]

Nicholas can only claim that Angelique was first born in 1774 if we throw the entire Judah Zachery storyline out the window.

I think there's no definite age for any of the characters; the writers chose what they wanted it to be at the time, and if they wanted to change it later, they did.

[madscntst]

MB was stating the ages as they were specified in a manuscript written before the show actually started-- a.k.a. Shadows on the Wall - The DS Bible .
Once the show actually took form certain facts were altered.

Carolyn's age fluctuates back and forth depending on the storyline. But believe it or not, it's most often established throughout the various storylines that she was 17 when DS began - flashbacks featuring Paul Stoddard and the Leviathans notwithstanding. 

Ah, thanks for the clarifications!

[MagnusTrask]

Geez, how young was Ang in Martinique, if she was 21 in 1795?   Was she jail bait?   These voyages take awhile, and a fair amount of time has passed since Barnabas was there.

[Cassandra Blair]

I seem to remember seeing a family bible or something at some point, pretty sure it was before the 1795 flashback, that said Elizabeth had been born in 1917, Roger in 1922, and Carolyn in 1948 (I think). But for the life of me, I can't remember the context.

It did seem like the writers changed up the character's ages as needed to fit the storyline.

I always figured Barnabas to have been about 30 when he was cursed, and thought Naomi must've been in her late teens when he was born, making her 50ish at her son's "death." Like someone said up thread, Sarah was likely a change of life baby. Always thought there was close to twenty years between Joshua/Abigail and Jeremiah. Maybe the Collins family had a lot of change of life babies in those days before birth control.

Who knows how old Laura Stockbridge Collins Murdoch Collins Murdoch Collins must've been? At least 210 or so at her first appearance on the show. Or does her age reset every time she "flames out?"

And what about the 1897 Collinses? I always figured -

Judith late 40's
Edward mid 40's
Quentin late 20's
Carl mid-late 20's

[Joeytrom]

Jeremiah must have also been a surprise baby as he and Barnabas are the same age.

There is a large gap between Judith/Edward & Quentin/Carl.
This makes me wonder if Quentin & Carl had a different mother then Judith & Edward .

In 1897, Barnabas refers to Jeremiah marrying Laura in 1785 when he was 10, making him 20 in 1795!

[LeFanu]

I've also always wondered if Judith/Edward and Quentin/Carl had different mothers.

I totally can't believe that Barnabas would have been twenty in 1795. Jonathan Frid looked lots younger in the flashback, but not THAT young!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Actually, as has been discussed on the forum a few times and has also been dealt with in one of Dale Clark's Quentions and Answers books:

I took a look at Dale Clark's DS Book of Questions and Answers Volume 6 which addresses this issue.  Here are some excerpts of what Mr. Clark says:

   Just because Barnabas was ten when he first saw Laura Stockbridge doesn't necessarily mean that he was ten when she and Jeremiah were married. ...

There are several myths about the DS storylines that seem to get repeated often enough for fans to begin to accept that they happened on the show.  ...  Another is the myth that Barnabas stated he was 10 years old when Jeremiah and Laura were married-- I'd read this so many times that by the time I finally saw the scene I was expecting to hear it. ...

[Miss_Winthrop]

As I remember it, Sarah was 11 or 12 when she died, her older brother was 21 years her senior. Now if Naomi had Barnabas when she was 15 or 16, that would make her 48 or 49 when he died. I think Joshua,  who spent probably many years building up his wealth, probably married much later in life and he would have selected a presumably much younger woman as his wife.  I believe that Josette would have been considerably much younger than Barnabas and it didn't present a problem as men of wealth often selected younger women for mates during that era.  I find it interesting that Barnabas was traveling to Martinique in the first place.  Perhaps Joshua had plantations in that area and Barnabas was sent down there to tend the family business. 

[Gerard]

In her book, Angelique's Descent, Lara Parker had Barnabas first meeting Angelique as a little girl when he was in Martinique while a member of the spanking brand new US navy.  He returned later to do exactly what you said:  chalk up business for daddy's merchant fleet.

Gerard

[GooberCollins]

Lara Parker is also writing a novel about Elizabeth and Quentin in the 1920s. If she has Elizabeth as a young adult in that novel, that throws Elizabeth's 1917 birth into question.

[loril54]

But the grave in 1970PT doesn't mean that it is our RT Barnabas age.

I also got the idea that Barnabas waited a while to get married and that
was a problem with Joshua.