Just to get this (pedantically) correct - the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar - for the British Empire as it existed then - changed in 1752. The change was reflected in the fact that the 31st December 1751 was followed by 1st January 1752 (this part of the change - the new year starting on 1st January had already been adopted in Scotland since 1600). Previously, the change of year occurred between the 24th and 25th March, 24th March 1750 being followed by 25th March 1751. However it must be noted that many parish records had adopted the new style beginning of the year many years in advance of 1752; it cannot be assumed that all dates recorded in English or Welsh parish records before 1752 were automatically using the Julian calendar. I have seen some that used the 1st January as the start of a year prior to 1752. Each parish record needs to be examined to see what year end they were using. The impact of recording dates only effects dates between the 1st January and 24th March in the years before 1752. However - in my view and experience, the recording of pre 1752 dates (1 Jan to 24 Mar) as 10 Mar 1750/51 causes so much confusion I don't do it; I simply record the dates as found on the records and I expect any users of my database to know of the Julian/Gregorian mis match for English/Welsh records prior to 1752. Incidentally, every European country has a similar dating issue when it comes to the switch between Julian and Gregorian calendars intermingled with historic and legal calendars - so any one with mixed British and European ancestry will have a mixture of dating changes at different times. The second impact of the British change to the Gregorian calendar was that in order to align the dates with the rest of Europe and adopt the new rules to accommodating leap years, eleven days had to be deleted from the 1752 calendar - resulting in the 2nd September 1752 being followed by the 14th September (even in the American colonies!). To complete the re-dating as in the form of 1750/51, I often wonder why those who want to be exact about the Julian/Gregorian date don't also subtract 11 days on a decreasing basis back to 1582 to arrive at the "real" equivalent Gregorian date. For any who may have wondered why the British tax year always starts on the 6th April - it is because the bankers in 1752 insisted on a full years (365 days) interest despite the deletion of 11 days from the calendar and extended their (old style) year end to the 5th April. Regards, Stewart -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of FredV Sent: 09 March 2008 16:43 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PAF-5] PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 3, Issue 39 Ok, any date in Jan-Mar in the 1700's in the US or UK should be written double, because of the Julian to Gregorian calendar change, google that if more info is needed.. Sooo... Feb 29,1750(OS)for example (And I did not look it up to see if it's a leap year or not) Would HAVE to be written Feb 29, 1750/1. With the Old style calendar (Julian) the event would happen in 1750. In the New Sytle calendar (Gregorian) it would happen in 1751, as the year formerly ended in March..So some folks find the event date in one of those years, and "correct" the date to whichever year they found..The pafdate program flagged Feb 29, 1750/1 as an error..probably because one of those years was not a leap year..And I spent a couple of moments trying to fix something that was not broken..Justa pet peave, I feel better now...:-) Regards, Fred -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ross G.H. Cotton Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 10:43 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PAF-5] PAF-5-USERS Digest, Vol 3, Issue 39 Fred I think you should give us an example of what you are mentioning, so we can understand your point? ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message