It appears that when a birthdate is added to a character the first instance of the characters icon appearing is five years after they were born. Perhaps there is a setting to change this but I haven’t seen it.
The event of the birth doesn’t appear in the line of anniversary icons. Nor does the event of the death.
Is that correct or am I missing something?
Hi Dorich, the birthday markers only start a year after their date of birth and the zoom level affects how many markers are shown. Zooming in will show a marker for each year, but it might only show one for every 5-10 years if you’re zoomed out further.
Calendar markers are another option to try if you’d like a bit more control.
Thanks for yr response.
For the benefit of anyone who has similar question in the future. I found my own solution.
The “Item Display” selection can create a display of characters on the time. Hence it runs for B/Date until death.
Obvious with hindsight but I had missed it.
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So just to confirm, it sounds like you’ve done the following:
Settings > Item Types > Character > Show In Timeline View 
Doing that will make your characters show up on the timeline so you can see their birth dates (with start date only), or lifespans (birth date & death date both added).
You might find that starts to get a little untidy if you have multiple characters mixed in with your events. If so, try activating grouping via the Group By menu in the footer and checking the box for Item Type. That way your events and characters will be split into their own rows which can make everything much easier to view.