I'm running v 1.01.05, and I've noticed that lately, no matter what events happen, my population never goes beyond the maximum. Is this something that was "fixed" in later versions of the game?

To my knowledge, nothing was changed in the population rules (but Arthur doesn't tell me everything he does). The "usual" way of exceeding the population limit is by multiple births, not events.

right, but the max would then be only 117, and there are lots of people out there that have gotten more than that. Twice I have had the mirror event, and should have gotten the extra person but it didn't happen. I was at max population at that point.

I have had as many as 8 villagers higher than the population limit by a combination of multiple births and the game's startup calculations. I believe that the population limits have always been enforced for events (such as the barrel of babies).

I've had 117 and am only ranked "4" ... guess a few have gone beyond that eh? WOW. My 114th villager gave birth to triplets, my only set to date.