QUAKER-ROOTS-L Archives

From: "Daniel W. Treadway" <>
Subject: Re: quaker dates
Date: Sun, 05 May 1996 14:07:19 -0700

Under the Julian calendar, March 25 was the first day of each new year. When
the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, only the Catholic countries
adopted it; England and her colonies waited until September of 1752. Russia
did not change until 1918, and Greece waited until 1923. The Russian
Orthodox Church still uses the Julian calendar.

If Quakers had used the names of the months, there would be much less
problem, since the change in calendars left the order of the months
unchanged. But several of the months were named to honor pagan gods, so
Quakers refused to use them, preferring to number them from the beginning of
the year. When the calendar changed, so did the beginning of the year. This
is the main fact that leads to confusion.

So before September of 1752, March was the first month, April the second, and
so forth. Notice that this makes September the seventh month, October the
eighth, November the ninth, and December the tenth. In fact, "september" is
the Latin word for "seventh month." "October" means "eighth month".
"November" means "ninth month", and "december" means "tenth month".

Occasionally you will find a date with two years, such as "11th month, 17th,
1733/4". If this date were in the 20th century, we would read it as meaning
the writer was not sure which of two years was right. But since it is in the
time period when some countries were using the Julian calendar and others
were already using the Gregorian calendar, the date given fell in 1733 of the
Julian calendar, and 1734 of the Gregorian calendar. The double dating makes
this clear.

In addition to the different times for beginning the year, there was also a
difference of 10 days between the two calendars during the period from 1582
to 1700, and 11 days from 1700 until 1800.

Too many so-called genealogists have published work in which they have
erroneously translated dates from the Julian era into Gregorian dates. This
makes three basic rules of good genealogy especially important to good Quaker
genealogy:

1. Always copy dates exactly as you find them. Do not translate.

2. Do not rely on secondary records. Consult the original.

3. Accompany every fact with source information.

I am sorry to say I constantly break both of the first two rules. My
computer program will not accept numbers in the month field, so I translate,
but carefully. I also have used a great deal of information from secondary
sources, because they are so easy and the originals so hard to obtain. But
in order to do it really right, follow the rules. I _am_ careful to tie each
fact to its source. By consulting original records whenever I can, I learn
something about the reliability of each secondary source.

I hope this makes the situation clear.

--
Dan Treadway

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