Jim, I disagree, because as students of history we should recognize that any pre-1583 date in England would have January-March dates happening *after* April-December dates (at least as far back as 1155). It's a matter of understanding European history and the calendar. No clarification is needed. If you're still worried that your audience won't understand, put an explanation in a note field. Drew ---------------------------------------------- So as students of history why do we use double dating at any time prior to 1762? Don't we all know about those Jan-Mar dates. In England the 1583 date had no significance. They didn't recognize the Gregorian calendar until 1762. All Jan-Mar dates before then including those before 1583 should be subject to double dating. As I've mentioned previously, experts in the field do use double dating prior to 1583. Jim

On 7/3/2012 11:38 AM, Jim Bullock wrote: > So as students of history why do we use double dating at any time prior to > 1762? Don't we all know about those Jan-Mar dates. How about putting this double dating to rest. It has been going on long enough, or else you and Drew do your thing privately. Lloyd ____________________________________________________________ NetZero now offers 4G mobile broadband. Sign up now. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT1

Is there not a user interface issue that perhaps we can agree on? That RM should accept double years in the format yyyy/yy for dates prior to 1583 just as it does for dates in the 21st century and automatically generate the sort date so that 28 Feb 1451/2 will sort after 31 Dec 1451 just as 28 Feb 2012/3 now sorts after 31 Dec 2012. Tom On 2012-07-03, at 3:37 PM, Lloyd Hite <lhite31.1@juno.com> wrote: > How about putting this double dating to rest. It has been going on long > enough, or else you and Drew do your thing privately. > > Lloyd >

Double Dating Definition: A system of double dating used in England and British North America from 1582-1752 for dates falling between January 1 and March 25. This was common practice because the new Gregorian calendar, which went into effect in 1582, but was not officially adopted by the British and the American colonies until 1752, recognized January 1 as the first day of the year, while the old Julian calendar recognized March 25 as the first day. Thus, dates between those two days prior to the calendar change in 1752 were often written with both year numbers (i.e. 5 January 1712/13).