How should old style dates be recorded?
How should old style dates be recorded in the Tree? For example, an original record from British Colonial America says "March 13, 1733" which would have been under the Julian ("Old Style") calendar. Under our present Gregorian ("New Style") Calendar this would be March 13, 1734, because the new year started on March 24 Old Style. Historically, this was often recorded as 1733/34, or 1733 (o.s.).
What is the "official" rule for the Family Search Family Tree? I've searched the help without success. I know folks do different things based on what they think it should be, but is there an official position?
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The nearest "official" advice I can see is found via the link below. However, I don't know if this is to be found anywhere on the FamilySearch website itself.
The problem with getting the "official position" is that FamilySearch managers / officials rarely participate in this Community forum. Personally, once I can ascertain the date is meant to represent its Julian form, I record it as (say) 13 March 1733/34. As you probably know, this leads to it being automatically standardised as 13 March 1734. The problem is obviously not new, as when I find indexed records for what is obviously the same event, some will show the event as (again, as in your example) taking place on 13 March 1733 and others show it as 13 March 1734. Some websites only have provision to record / index dates in four-digit format, whilst others (like FreeREG) do (where appropriate) have their transcriptions in double-dated format.
In some original documents (as you say) dates are actually recorded in the form 13 March 1733/34, so I don't know what instruction was given to FamilySearch indexers on this (usually, it was "record as it is written"), when this format was / is (?) never used in FamilySearch databases. If indexers were able to record in that format, I assume there was a lot of inconsistency applied in the "post indexing phase" (prior to the records hitting the main database).
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I don't know how it should be done and I suspect that any standard way of doing it flip flops every decade or so. But one thing nice about Family Tree is that it does give you the flexibility to record information however it seems best. For a while it seemed that dates were an exception, but recently I stumbled across formatting that restored the ability to add additional information to dates. You can to this by using colons. They allow you do do this:
Click on the grey line and the date is preserved exactly as you entered it. You then need to decide how you which standard you want to link it two, that is either the 1733 or 1734 version by clicking on the line that appears under the date you typed and choosing the one you want:
There do seem to be some length limitations, but I haven't run out of room yet for a date.
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I'm a devotee of recording the displayed date in the format 18 January 1726/27 (as an example) and standardising it on 18 January 1727,ie standardising on the New Style date. I'm certain that my double date format once automatically offered that New Style standard, so I have always believed that was the FS standard else why was that offering programmed?
A caveat applies however. I have not tried entering such a date recently so I cannot confirm it's as easy as that now. It might be that I will need to use Gordon's suggestion, as the flexibility for entering and standardising place names was drastically curtailed some time ago without explanation. Dates may also have been curtailed.
Incidentally, while the change to 1 January as the start of the New Year is often described as being a result of the change to the Gregorian calendar - it wasn't. It simply happened that England and Wales and its colonies changed to the 1 January date at the same time as the Julian to Gregorian change. However, this was not a necessary link - Scotland had been using the 1 January date from 1600 while sticking with the Julian calendar.
Making it clear what the year style is, is important. In another place, a family history appeared nonsensical until we realised that some of the clashing dates had been translated to New Style dates not once but twice, resulting in them being advanced by 2 without any indication of the style in use. Those dates then clashed with others that were still in Old Style but without any indication to that effect.
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We are probably drifting slightly off topic with regards to the original point raised by @EricShelton but it is interesting to see how this matter is "dealt with" in Family Tree.
Firstly, here is the default standard date when inputting one in double-dated format:
However, it does not this way if the day of the month is omitted, standardising on the earlier year instead:
Whereas in entering just a year, two options are presented to choose from:
Things work that way back to a 1582/83 input, but up to 1581/82 you get an option like this:
I just read the reason for this:
"The Gregorian calendar was officially introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII".
Ah, but for some reason, inputting both years "in full" does allow for standardisation on 1581 or 1582!
You either find this fascinating stuff, or have fallen asleep by now! (My other hobby used to be trainspotting!)
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