Jim, Yes, England was using *only* the Julian Calendar in both 1450 and 1750. The purpose of doubledating is to show what a date would look like in both calendars, but only during a year in which both calendars were in use in different places in the world. But no country was using the Gregorian Calendar in the dates you were citing (before 1582), and therefore, double dating for such dates would be nonsensical. This isn't just "mailing list opinions". These are statements of fact. And even "better informed genealogists" would agree. Drew Smith On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Jim Bullock <j.b.bullock@comcast.net> wrote: > No, the point is that countries like England were using the same calendar > in, say, 1450 as they were in 1750 and double dating should be used for both > centuries. At any rate, I'll stick with what the professionals are doing in > the scholarly journals rather than go by mailing list opinions. I cited > only one article from one journal but there are many more as the better > informed genealogists are aware.

Following December 1450 (as an example), dates in the following months up to March 25 would have originally been written with the year shown as 1450. Today we show that as 1450/1 to clarify that those January-March dates were after December 1450, not before. Otherwise a date such as 4 Feb 1450 would be mistaken as having occurred before Dec 1450. Jim Bullock