Forwarded for information about the ENGLISH calendar change in 1752 (NOT JUST FOR QUAKERS). It deals with Quaker marriage records but explains that the beginning of a new year used to be March 25th in the entire English world. I have heard this before and I still don't quite understand it. I hope Paul Palmer does. Betty Pace From: "Paul C. Palmer" <pcpalmer@gvtc.com> To: QUAKER-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 12:04:01 -0500 Subject: Re: [Q-R] Important Note on Quaker Marriage Records, please read. Quakers preferred not to use the traditional names of the months and days, as they were at worst pagan and at least unnecessary. So most of the time they used numbers only. When a document (such as a will) also needed to be readable by non-Quakers, allusions to said traditional names might be included for clarity. To complicate reading of Quaker dates even more is the fact that UNTIL September 1752 in the English-speaking world, the year began not with January but with March -- technically 25 March. Thus the 1st month was March; 2nd was April; 3rd was May; 4th was June; 5th was July; 6th was August; 7th was September; 8th was October; 9th was November; 10th was December; 11th was January; and 12 was February. I'm sure most of you know this, but I have encountered respected historians and expensive professional genealogists who misread the OLD STYLE dates much of the time. If you are a stickler for accuracy, be very wary of anyone's dates from the era before September 1752. When the changeover to the modern calendar (NEW STYLE) was made in September 1752, the days of the month were also advanced 11 days. Thus, as I recall, the day after 13 September 1752 was 25 September 1752. Few genealogists try to make that 11 day adjustment, and there probably is no adequate reason to do so. It may interest you to know that George Washington changed his birthday from 11 February (1731/32) to 22 February. Most people, I have read, did NOT choose to make such adjustments. Quakers continued to use their own system, but AFTER 1752 their 1st month was January; 2nd was February, etc. I believe there are explanatory articles available on line about the Quaker calendar and about Old Style/New Style dating. Paul C. Palmer ----- Original Message ----- From: Lottie Bardoel <mlbardoel@silvercrest.ab.ca> To: <QUAKER-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 12:36 PM Subject: [Q-R] Important Note on Quaker Marriage Records, please read. Hi John, I know exactly what happened. This has to do with the calendar year. It used to be off by two months. ( I will not even attempt to sound knowledgeable about this, there are others who could explain it better.) The records would say something like. " On the 5 th day of the 2nd month known as April in the year known by Christian accounts as One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty...." This is off the top of my head as I didn't transcribe all of this. I only want to explain that for YOUR dates, they used the number of the month as in the above record would be FEBRUARY, BUT the NAME of the month was APRIL, so this is what I transcribed. This only occurs till aprox. 1754 and then the number of the months changes to the same as the present day calendar. I HOPE I have not made a serious transcription error, but I believe that this would be the correct way to do it. As the month never 'changed' i.e. July would be summer... but the 'number' of the month can mean either April or February. I am forwarding this to the mailing lists as well, because this is a good point to make with records from this time frame. If anyone else has discrepancies besides the two month difference I have talked about above, please contact me and I will double check when I return to the FHC. PLEASE include the page # and names in the subject line. Lottie [in brackets below I have put the dates I found on the film.] >>From: "John" <jtremblay@swfla.rr.com>