Genealogy and the Calendar

Genealogy and the Calendar

Section 1.6

Last update: 02/05/'04

The differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendar come into play when time periods span September 14,1752, when we back calculate to a date in Britian and its colonies before then, or when the records of dates from other countries (after 1582) are correlated with dates from British lands before this date. It also affects references to New Years day (March 25 before, January 1 after).

The changes in the calendar that have the most impact on genealogy in America are the shortened month of September 1752:

    September 1752
 S  M  Tu  W Th  F  S
       1   2 14 15 16
 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

and the change in the new year from March 25 to January 1 which affects any date in the January 1 to March 24 period of all years prior to 1752. For this reason you see genealogical dates like February 20, 1740/1, meaning a date between Dec. 31, 1740 and March 25, 1741 (the new year) or a date with the designation os for old style (Julian) or ns for new style (Gregorian).

Resources on the Web to Help sort out dates:

http://www.engr.orst.edu/~crowl/time/britgreg.html had a Newsgroup contribution by Edward Shaw of the impact of the changes on genealogical dates.
http://alpha.chemeng.mcgill.ca/cgi-bin/gcalendar had a Gregorian Calendar Calculator which was used to display the calendar of 9/1752 shown above.
A quote from Roger S. Boone, "Some Quaker Families" on representing Genealogical dates.

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