It changed in 1800, huh? Smile. Do you think everyone in rural small meetings both knew that, and remembered which date to write on January 3, 1804? Useful information, and actually supports my suspicion. Grin! But I bet that on Jan 3, 2006, you had no problem with writing 2005 instead. You've always got it down! Wish I did... I'm the person who got labelled pathetic by a former boss for being unable to turn in a timesheet free of errors. Sounds like you'd have called me pathetic too. And I know I'm not alone. At the banks we don't even have to rewrite checks we misdate by a year at the beginning of January. It's a mistake everyone makes. The banks know that. Yours, Dora Smith Austin, TX [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "bob gillis" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 7:13 AM Subject: Re: [GEN-COMP-TIPS] Quaker Dates was [include all spouses and stepchildren] > Dora if you Google Quaker Dates|dating I think you will find that the > Quakers, at least here in the USA, while using the old numbered months > system, had changed over by 1800 to Jan 1 as the start of the new year. > They did not continue using Mar 23 or 25 as the start of the new year. > > So the first month would have been January, and the 11 month would have > been November. > > I doubt that Quakers would have used the Mar date as it was a religious > date. > > bob gillis > > Dora Smith wrote: > >>FTM cant even accept the most basic kind of irregular dates, which is dual >>dates, like 22 Feb 1636/37. That was the old fashioned way of writing >>dates during the winter months, partly on account of a gap between a >>previous method of counting the months of the year and the current method. >>People actually weren't sure what year it was. LOL! Dates from that >>period confuse people so badly that they are often garbled, so I preserve >>all of the information I get. >> >>An example of why that is important is actually in the example I provided. >>The son of Eli who is my ancestor is poorly placed in that family. He >>inherited land between that of his two brothers, is as nearly as I ever >>got >>to proving who his parents were! The census and his gravestone both say >>he was born in 1804. His birth was never recorded in teh Quaker meeting >>records anywhere in his locality. Eli's first wife died in something >>like >>3 11th month 1803. Quaker dates used the old system I referred to above. >>THe months didn't have names, they had numbers, and the numbering was >>either >>two months ahead or two months behind our current system of months. >> >>Eli didn't marry again until 1806. So was he living in sin for two >>years? >>For sure his meeting and his family seldom saw him! >> >>I don't think so. I think that Ezra was born in on the 3rd of January, >>1804, and his mother died of childbirth. You and I can't get the year >>right when we write the date on the 3rd of January, and it may really have >>been 1803 in the old dating system, and in 1804 the person responsible for >>writing it down in the Quaker meeting record could have conceivably not >>had >>it straight which year it properly was in the old dating system. >> >>Of course, by now, the transcriptions of the Quaker meeting records and >>transcriptions of those and so on are garbled too, so sometimes I've seen >>it >>as 3 11th month 1803, and sometimes I've seen it as 11, 3rd month, 1803, >>and >>they could both conceivably mean January 1804. >> >>Writing down the exact information I was given fails to multiply the >>confusion. >> >>Other systematically irregular dates are bef 12 Jan 1807, aft 1810, and >>betw >>23 Jan and 4 Jun 1819. FTM can't accept them either. Some other >>genealogy programs accept them as written, and one that I know of >>simplifies >>them to its idea of a shorter format. >> >>Sometimes good genealogical sources have multiple dates of life events, >>and >>it's important for future researchers to see all of them to be able to >>match >>a person in the database with someone they might see in a source they're >>looking up. That is particularly true of people who emigrated from >>England >>to New England during the 17th century. I have a number of ancestors >>with >>three widely varying estimates of year of birth. 1581/ 1590/ 1608. >>Not >>by coincidence these are common names, so it's particularly important to >>turn up whatever date information I do have in the search feature and the >>indexing (which prints what it prints from the date fields and not your >>notes). For instance, George Allen and George Bishop. >> >>Sometimes it is not possible to resolve a conflict between dates of >>different formats. 1680, 23 Jun 1681, or 5 Aug 1681. If that's what I >>have, that's what I enter. I don't randomely pick one and stick the >>others >>out of sight in the notes! That sometimes happens even in French >>Canadian >>genealogy, which is based on extremely accurate and well preserved record >>keeping. >> >>The majority of popular genealogy programs now accept irregular dates >>exactly as you entered them. Just not FTM. >> >>A customer service person at FTM told me I can reenter my entire 14,800 >>person database and put the dates in the notes. >> >>Yours, >>Dora Smith >>Austin, TX >>[email protected] >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "Peggy Ann Vipond" <[email protected]> >>To: <[email protected]> >>Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:42 PM >>Subject: Re: [GEN-COMP-TIPS] include all spouses and stepchildren >> >> >> >> >>>Hi Dora >>>What do you call an irregular date. Please give several samples >>> >>>Thanks Peggy >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>I'd love to try it - but FTM won't be of any use to me until they fix >>>>their >>>>issue with irregular dates. >>>> >>>> >>>-------------------------------------- >>>Having trouble with your subscription? 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