I have often wondered about this same topic. Most of the ancestors I am researching did not read, or at least that is my assumption, based on the fact they signed their names with "X". Margaret Strueby ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Schira" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 8:25 PM Subject: [GFO] Re: ORFORUM-D Digest V05 #12 > > How did people keep track of the calendar on the > > frontiers of America? How did they know the date on > > which their baby was born? I have some folks who > > were always at the leading edge of the frontier so I > > can see why their ages would bounce around from one > > census to the next. They probably didn't have the > > foggiest idea the month let alone the date....or did > > they? > > > > Carole > > > Even Robinson Cruso knew what the date was. If > they were really out in the sticks, it was just a > matter of adding a day every time the sun came up, > then going to their notes of how many months had how > many days, and then adding a day in February, every > time the year could be divided by 4 -- easy really. > > Anyway, I don't believe any place was really out > in the sticks. Factually, there *were* frontier > newspapers; government or territorial officials always > had to know or keep track of the dates, as did > churches. If they were really lazy, they could have > just ordered a calendar from back east. (Even the > frontier had mail service, and when there's mail > service, one always knows the date, or can figure it > out fast enough.) > > Jim in Portland > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. > http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 > > > ==== ORFORUM Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe, send a message to [email protected] that > contains (in the body of the message) only the single word: unsubscribe > > ============================== > Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the > last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx > > >