Quaker dates
I have found a Quaker record with the following documentation of children:
Issac born the 19th day of 12th mo. 174 8/9
Ruth born the 24th day of the 6th mo. 1741
Samuel born the 18th day of the 9th mo. 1743
Lydia born the 7th day of the 9th mo. 1745
Sarah born the 3rd day of the 8th mo. 1748
Mary born the 11th day of the 8th mo. 1751
My question is that this seems to be in sequential order of birth, but the first date (for Isaac) appears to read 1748. A closer look makes the 8/9 almost look like a fraction. So, I am wondering if it is 1740 8/9 or perhaps 1739 and 8/9ths?
Any ideas? I have also seen a birth date in Quaker records as 1738/9. Not sure what to believe but I do think he was the first born.
Answers
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Any chance of a link to this document? My first thought is that what you're reading as "8/9" must actually be something else, such as a zero.
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Or perhaps the record was created (possibly copied from an older record) after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
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If you could please put a link, I can look at it, and perhaps figure it out
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It could well be that the first date represents 12 February 1748/49. Under the old calendar (pre 1753), February would be considered the twelfth month of 1748 - the year running from 25 March 1748 to 24 March 1748 - the latter date being in what we would now think of as 1749, but is often recorded in registers as 1748/49.
The confusion often feeds through to indexed records, where in one you will find the date indexed as (in this example) 12 February 1748 and through a different project it will be indexed as 12 February 1749.
The only dates this would apply to are those from 1 January - 24 March, hence your other examples (apparently referring to events in August, September and October) would never include a dual-dating format.
Incidentally, March was always considered the first month, in spite of its first twenty four days being in the previous year!
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Quakers objected to the use of names for the days of the week and months because these names derive from "heathen" gods and goddesses. As noted in the post above, until the change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar in 1752 Twelfth Month was February, so that first date is double dated old style/new style.
Edit to add: See this page from the wiki
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Nonconformist_Church_Records#Quaker_Dates
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The Latin names for the months correspond with the old calendar Sep = 7, Oct = 8, Nov = 9, Dec = 10.
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Based on data you provided, and per Julian calendar, Isaac was born on Feb 19. Given the fact that Sarah was born in Oct, 1748, it is not feasible for Isaac to be born in Feb of 1748 or 1749 (unless he was very born very prematurely in which case he probably would not have survived in the 1700's). I would say that it is highly likely that he was born in 1738 or 1739, which would also line up with birth order since his next sibling (Ruth) was born in 1741. I personally do indexing of records for the Mayflower Society, and the method of listing a date as 1738/9 simply means there is uncertainly in the records whether it was 1738 or 1739.
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@GenieSleuth, no, as Paul W said last year, the slash has nothing to do with uncertainty, neither in Quaker contexts, nor I'm sure in the Mayflower Society's usage. It simply indicates that the event occurred prior to the new year by the old reckoning, but after the new year by the new reckoning. "Feb 19 1738/9" is just a shorter way to write "Feb 19 1738 Julian / Feb 19 1739 Gregorian".
The trick with Quaker dates is not in interpreting dual years, but in figuring out the month: is that "12mo" starting from March or from January? You need to know the year to answer: the 31st day of the tenth month of 1751 was followed by the 1st day of the first month of 1752, meaning that the number-to-name associations changed starting in 1752. (December used to be the tenth month -- going back to the Romans, hence its name, based on the Latin for "ten" -- but became the twelfth month, for example.)
Here's a nice article on the topic of Quaker dates: https://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library/quaker-calendar.
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