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Archiver > QUAKER-ROOTS > 2000-01 > 0946817224


From: Densmore <>
Subject: Re: [Q-R] Another Quaker date dilema
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2000 07:47:04 -0500 (EST)


Did all Quakers change to the new calendar in 1752? London Yearly Meeting
sent a rather lenghtly explaination of the changes prepared by a committee
of the Meeting for Sufferings "To the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of
Friends in Great-Britain, Ireland, and America".

London Yearly Meeting agreed with the Meeting for Sufferings Committee
that for "all Records and Wrings of Friends" the the change in the
designations of the months would begin on January 1, 1752 (that is, the
tenth month in the old style (December) would be followed by the first
month (January) in the new style.

This document was reprinted and circulated in North America. Changing from
the old system to the new had the explicit approval of London Yearly
Meeting (which was as authoratitive as anything could be among Quakers of
that period), so I think that the assumption should be that any date in
1752 onward in Quaker records follows the January = First Month system.
However, I am also a great fan of recording dates as they are written.

My big problem is not what dates were used in 1752 and onward, but whether
a Quaker writing in say, 1800, about a pre 1752 happening would retain the
old system or amend it to follow the new system. Would a Quaker born in
October 1749 think of herself as having been born in the Eighth Month (old
style) or Tenth Month (new style)?

Christopher Densmore
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