> 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