Gregorian - Julian Calendar dates

[Helmut Leininger 0]

Hi,

 

I have a question to experienced genealogists (i.e. you):

 

A branch of may wife's ancestors is from Latvia where the Julian calendar was used (until the beginning of the 20th century I think). Which is the best way to record the dates?

 

Recording Julian dates:

matches the documents, but weekdays are different

 

Recording Gregorian dates:

fits with the usual timelines, but does not match documents

 

I feel that in either way there are difficulties with the feasts / holidays, e.g. "3rd Sunday after Trinitatis".

[Michael Hannah 0]

Hello Helmut,

 

I don't claim to be an "experienced genealogist" but will attempt some comments anyway. First, most people seem to recommend entering the date as shown in the documentation and/or as used at the time of the event in the location of the event. You can then adjust things if you wish in TMG using the Sort Date to cause the events to sort appropriately. However, you actually asked two very different questions:

... the Julian calendar was used (until the beginning of the 20th century I think). Which is the best way to record the dates?

As stated in Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained on page 353, section 7.38, for old documents: "the cited year is usually not the modern calendar year. It may be Old Style (Julian Calendar) year that ran from Ladyday (March 25th) of one year to the eve of Ladyday in the next year (March 24th). Occasionally, it will represent a year running from Easter of one year to Easter Eve of the next." On page 89, section 2.75, in the topic Citing Dates she further states: "During the long transition from the Julian Calendar to the modern Gregorian Calendar, many English and American documents used a system of double-dating... In this practice, the date '1 February 1732/3' would be 1732 under the Julian Calendar and 1733 under the Gregorian Calendar."

 

TMG permits using this system of double-dating for Julian/Gregorian, and chronologically sorts these events correctly. See the TMG Help under the entry "Date Format' subtopic "Old Style Dates". You can also set what range of years TMG expects are "Old Style" in Preferences > Program Options > General. I believe that the use of this double-dating, when appropriate, will be understood by most genealogists. Certainly for citations I would use the date from the document but likely use this double-dating if I knew that the calendar used by the document was Julian and the date occurred in those first months of the year when there is ambiguity.

 

...there are difficulties with the feasts / holidays, e.g. "3rd Sunday after Trinitatis"

Again, most seem to recommend entering the date as found in the documentation. So in TMG I would enter "3rd Sunday after Trinitatis" in the Date field which TMG will consider an irregular date, but in the Sort Date I would put the date converted to day and month and year so it will sort appropriately.

 

Finally, if you have a TMG dataset where you have data and events from many different locations where the Calendars used differed for those locations, but want to sort these events in a common narrative, I would probably adopt some personal data entry convention for myself. For example, I would enter in the TMG Date fields according to the calendar used for that event in that location, but probably convert all TMG Sort Dates to modern Gregorian to ensure that all the events would sort in the narrative in true chronological order. Others may have different suggestions.

 

The beauty of the TMG Sort Date is that you can put whatever makes sense for report output in the Date field but then put something different in the non-printing Sort Date and not have to worry about how the Date entry text will sort. (Note that you must have TMG set to Advanced mode to be able to access Sort Dates.)

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

[Helmut Leininger 0]

Hi Michael,

 

Many thanks for your explanations. I will do as you suggested.

most people seem to recommend entering the date as shown in the documentation and/or as used at the time of the event in the location of the event. You can then adjust things if you wish in TMG using the Sort Date to cause the events to sort appropriately.

At least for some events I will probably use the memo field to state the "real" date, maybe together with a split memo field and modified sentence.

 

Thanks again.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Your memo idea is an excellent way to deal with more complicated cases. Glad my ideas helped.