Gregorian calendar

Sjohnson54

I have ancestors that have a birth date listed in the birth register of Harwich Mass, British Colonial America as 8 Jan 1714/15. I know this is because of the change in calendars. two questions, first which one is the gregorian year and second, how do I record it in family search?

Robert Seal_1

Hello @Sjohnson54,

The following article may be of assistance: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Julian_and_Gregorian_Calendars

See in particular the sixth paragraph under "Background".

Try entering this date in FamilySearch Family Tree as: 8 January 1714/1715. I believe the system will then offer you "8 January 1715" as the standardized date.

Nelson David Harold

@Sjohnson54 The switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar does not explain the shift in the year. The shift in the US/UK/Canada/Colonies took place in 1752 and there were 11 days skipped. See the article from this URL: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html

Do you mind sharing an image of the birth register? Was there doubt about the year from the transcription of the register?

If you are not able to clarify the year, which is likely, choose one, (your best guess) and and add a note indicating the lack of clarity for the birth year.

My grandfather always listed a birth year of 1895. When we found his birth record, it gave us the year 1894. We recorded is birth as he gave it, but attached the birth record and added a note about the discrepancy.

Paul W

@Nelson David Harold

My research is largely confined to England and - for this period - to parish registers. Whilst by far the majority pre-1753 registers have the year running from 25 March to 24 March, some do run from 1 January to 31 December. In other cases, I have seen the dates actually written in the 8 January 1714/15 format, so I doubt the problem is based on a lack of clarity over whether the year should be either 1714 or 1715 in the sense you describe.

That is not to say that, especially in dealing with indexed records, there cannot be some confusion about the year of the event. I regularly come across to indexed versions of the same event, where one will be shown as (say) 8 January 1714 and the other as 8 January 1715. I assume in such cases that one indexer will have followed the common instruction to record exactly what is written in the original document (1714), whilst the other will have "converted" the date to reflect the year as we would record it today - as 1715.

Personally, if I find a register that runs from March to March, I input the date in Family Tree as (say) 8 January 1714/1715, which is retained as the display date on the profile page, whilst the programming standardises it to 8 January 1715.

Robert Seal_1

Hello @Sjohnson54,

Further explanation:

The double dating of the year "1714/15" in your example is because Great Britain and its colonies at this time considered the beginning of the new year as occuring on 25 March as opposed to 1 January. The change in Great Britain and the colonies to 1 January as the start of the new year occurred on 1 January 1752.

Great Britain's change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar occurred on Wednesday, 2 September 1752 (Julian calendar) when it was followed the next day by Thursday, 14 September 1752 (Gregorian calendar).

Hence your date above whether written as "8 January 1714/1715" or "8 January 1715" is still a date from the Julian calendar.

The Julian calendar date "8 January 1714/15" converts to the Gregorian calendar date "19 January 1715".

Adrian Bruce1

@Robert Seal_1 said:

The Julian calendar date "8 January 1714/15" converts to the Gregorian calendar date "19 January 1715"

It might be worth pointing out that if the date in the source is "8 January 1714/15" or "8 January 1714" when the New Year starts in March, for genealogical purposes virtually no-one adds 11 to come up with 19 January. In other words, the only manipulation most of us do, is to the year to base it on a New Year Day of 1 January.

I know that various people in history did retrospectively alter their dates of birth by adding 11 but, if I remember correctly, I've never seen current genealogists do similar.

There are several reasons for this...

1. It seriously breaks the link to the original source.
2. It's hard work.
3. The correction is only 11 at certain points in history - before or after 1752, it can be less or more.

Robert Seal_1

Agreed.