Tuesday's Tip: It's just a matter of time...but which one?

If you're like me, you've pondered the names of the months at one point or another. Especially those at the end of the year that have numerical prefixes (sept, oct, nov, dec). And if you have Quakers in your family history, you might be wondering why some of the dates aren't matching up with other records you have for certain individuals. After all, few, if any, Quaker records were recorded using the actual name of the month. Rather, they were recorded using the number of the month. But there is an easy explanation as to why some things might not be adding up!



Around 1752 we changed from the Julian calendar, which had 10 months (hence the dec (meaning ten) in December), to the Gregorian calendar, which has 12 months. So when analyzing your Quaker dates, it is important to consider which calendar was used in the recording of events. If you have the date written as "17xx, 4, 30", then it is important to consider whether or not the record means April 30, 17xx, or June 30, 17xx.

For more facts about the names of the months, I found this site interesting:
http://www.crowl.org/lawrence/time/months.html

And for an easy reminder of the shift in dates (especially those pertaining to Quaker records), there is an easy chart here: http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/roots-l/genealog/genealog.quakerc1


Happy tree climbing!