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From: "Sandra Ferguson" <>
Subject: Fw: DOUBLE DATING or Old Style & New Style
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 11:00:00 -0400


This is from our friend Kathy's new Welsh site, and too good not to pass on!




>Did you ever get confused about Double Dating used in some of the genealogy
>software programs? Or run into documents or bible records that have "Old
>Style" or "New Style" beside dates? This may help.
>
>Period documents, bible entries, and such around 1753 in the American
>Colonies when the calendar switched from Julian to Gregorian (making the
New
>Year begin 1 Jan instead of 25 Mar & adding abt 14 days in September to
>correct the calendar) are commonly annotated "Old Style" and "New Style"
(or
>"O.S." and "N.S."). In some cases both date formats were given.
>I'd never heard it referred to as Double Dating until recently.
>
> First, the change from Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1753 only
>included double dating for countries like England (and English Colonies)
>that did not already use Jan. 1st as New Years to begin with.
>
> Second, the perceived loss of __ days being in Sept. is for England/US, in
>other countries the change over occurred in different months of different
>years and the number of days "lost" depends on the year the change over
>occurred.
>
>Third, the "affect" of converting from one to the other actually makes
EVERY
>day of the year change, not just the first couple months as some might be
>tricked into thinking due to confusing double dating with actually
>converting dates from Julian to Gregorian.
>
>See Calendar FAQ at: http://www.tondering.dk/claus/calendar.html for more
>information. This FAQ does not use the term "double dating" but it does
>have a section about the first day of the year that says years recorded in
>documents from the middles could be any of 7 different periods (not just 2
>like FTM's double dating scheme).
>
>Also, don't forget to add in the complication of regnal years, which were
>used a lot in old documents and books, where the year is listed as the
>number of full years a specific ruler had reigned to that point, not the
>standard BC/AD year number we use. These numbers do NOT start at Jan. 1st
>or Mar. 25th or any other constant date, they start at either the date the
>ruler acceded or the day that ruler was crowned, which complicated matters
>even more. Actually, the BC/AD year number system we use IS itself a
regnal
>year, the estimated number of years in the reign of Christ and that is why
>other religious and agnostic groups make up their own numbering systems for
>the year beginning on a different date.
>
>Hope this helps someone new to genealogy better understand our calendar
>change in 1753.
>
>Kathy W-F
>
>
>
>
>==============================
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>
>

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