george pickingill was the son of charles pickingill, a labourer and blacksmith, and susannah cudner, a woman who also went by the name of hannah cudmore; the couple had married on 17 september 1813. although he had no known birth record, according to parish records, george pickingill was baptised on 26 may 1816 at the church in hockley. the year of pickingill's birth is however in question, as he made differing claims in different censuses; in the 1851 census, he claimed to be 26, meaning that his birth would have occurred "circa" 1825, while in the 1861 census, he claimed to be 46, which would have placed his birth c.1815. by the time of the 1901 census, he was claiming to be 95, moving his birth to c.1806; it has been suggested that he made himself appear older to ease the process of collecting parish assistance from the church. throughout his life, pickingill would also use a variety of different spellings of his surname on official records, including "pickengill", "pickingale", "pickengal", "pettingale", "pitengale", and "pittengale".