Citations:before someone's time

Adjective: "(idiomatic) from before one was born or old enough to be aware of the world"

 * 1976 — Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Bantam (2003), ISBN 9780553897890, unnumbered page:
 * The beatniks were before my time, and I never got anything outta the hippies but bad dope, clichés and the clap.
 * 2005 — Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down, Jove Books (2005), ISBN 1101146796, unnumbered page:
 * Maybe some people used to have it, before my time—the Stones, the Clash, the Who.
 * 2007 — Bobby Braddock, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida, Louisiana State University Press (2007), ISBN 9780807132227, page 55:
 * At thirteen, I liked a lot of music that was before my time: Louis Armstrong and Dixieland jazz, Sousa marches, and barbershop quartet singing.
 * 2008 — Christine Lynxwiler, Along Came a Cowboy, Barbour Publishing, Inc. (2008), ISBN 9781607420163, unnumbered page:
 * "I don't guess you're a Beatles fan, are you?" Judy asks.
 * I nod. "I definitely am. They were before my time, but I love most of their music. Why?"
 * 2011 — Max Collins & Matthew Clemens, No One Will Hear You, Pinnacle Books (2011), ISBN 9780786021352, page 27:
 * "The Beatles? 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'?"
 * Polk shrugged. "Before my time."

Adverb: "(idiomatic) at a stage in one's life, development, etc. that seems premature"

 * 1951 — Johnny Cash, letter to Vivian Cash dated 3 November 1951, reprinted in Vivian Cash (with Ann Sharpsteen), I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny, Scribner (2007), ISBN 9781416532927, page 38:
 * Oh yes, and tell her to take care of herself too, and not get herself all banged up again, or she will look old before her time.
 * 2005 — Jill Briscoe, The New Normal: Living a Fear-Free Life in a Fear-Driven World, Multomah Publishers (2005), ISBN 159052473X, page 35:
 * I had been around long enough to know a few people who had died before their time. The two-year-old down the street who died of leukemia, the teenage anorexic, the eighteen-year-olds in various wars and military forays around the globe,
 * 2007 — Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Grave, Mira (2007), ISBN 9780778325246, page 17:
 * "I was afraid of this," he murmured. "The curse of the Greys, it is. All snatched before their time."
 * 2007 — Robin Shannon, Cemeteries of Seattle, Arcadia Publishing (2007), ISBN 9780738548135, page 119:
 * Jimi Hendrix is buried at Evergreen Memorial Park in Renton. The electric guitar player extraordinaire died before his time at the young age of 27.
 * 2011 — Alfreada Brown-Kelly, Why Women Weep, iUniverse (2011), ISBN 9781462026647, page 60:
 * She was 84-years-old, but I still feel like she was taken before her time.
 * 2012 — Laura Frantz, Love's Reckoning, Revell (2012), ISBN 9781441239785, unnumbered page:
 * "Unless you become the third apprentice to quit before his time?"
 * 2012 — Diana Peterfreund, For Darkness Shows the Stars, Balzer + Bray (2012), ISBN 9780062114372, unnumbered page:
 * "I don't think so. Your mother, I am sure, was taken before her time, but she was a grown woman. She had made a life, she had grown children in you and your sister. Sophia died so young — all of her potential was wasted."