Dates

Quite often you may find among your relatives one whose birth date is not available. To place such a one in relation to other names on your chart it is advisable to use an approximate date of birth. It is always well to take into consideration the marriage date of the parents, if that is available, and the birth dates of other children in the family.

Statistics have been gathered from thousands of families in various countries and the following figures represent the average of the whole group. The average age of fathers at the birth of the first child is 26 years and of mothers it is 22 years. If you have the birth date of only one child and do know which child it is, first or a later one, the average age of the father will be 32 years and of the mother 28 years. Remember that these figures are averages only and will be wrong more often than right. Count the approximate age at marriage at 25 years for the man and 21 years for the woman. If you have the death date you are fortunate but you cannot approximate the birth date from that unless the age at death is given. Approximate dates should be marked "about" and it is well to indicate

[Source: Approximating dates was taken from pages 126-127, The Sixth Edition of The How Book For Genealogists, published by The Everton Publishers, Inc., Logan, UT, 1969.]

(The following article on dates is taken from a book, pages 16-21, by Johni Cerny & Arlene Eakle, Ancestry's GUIDE TO RESEARCH Case Studies in American Genealogy, published by Ancestry Incorporated, Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1985. Ancestry Incorporated has given permission for the reprinting of this article from their book. We sincerely appreciate Ancestry Incorporated granting permission to print the entire article so you can get a better understanding of the changes made to the calendar in 1752.)

Everyone knows that Christian nations begin a new year on 1 January. Fewer people realize that Jewish and Chinese new years fall on different days every year and fewer still know that the calendar as we know it has undergone many changes. New Year's Day, for example, used to fall on 25 March. The finest discussion of time in genealogical identification, "Dates and the Calendar," was written by Donald Lines Jacobus in Genealogy as Pastime and Profession, and an edited version of his work follows.

Names, dates, and places are the working material of genealogy, and for ease and accuracy in handling dates, the genealogist should possess or develop a mathematical mind. He should see at a glance that a man born in 1738 was to young to marry in 1751 and that he probably did not marry a woman born in 1724. Experience teaches him to weigh problems of date and to draw conclusions from them almost instantaneously.

When very few positive dates are available and the genealogist desires to check the probability of an alleged pedigree or a series of relationships, it is helpful to assign guessed dates to births. If the children of given parents are known, but not their birth dates, these can be guessed from known dates. If the age at death of one of the children is found stated, then for this one we have an approximate date of birth, probably not more than a year away from fact in either direction. We thus can work from the known towards the unknown and group the other children about the one with the fixed date. The marriage dates of some of the children may be known, and birth dates may be guessed from these, on the basis that a man married from twenty-two to twenty-six and a woman from eighteen to twenty -four. When one of the women had recorded children born from 1721 to 1745, for example, then at a glance we can set down 1700 or 1701 almost with certainty as the approximate time of her birth because here we have the known limits of the period of childbearing to guide us.

Such guessed dates should be clearly marked in some way to avoid confusion with positive dates. They can be placed in brackets, thus: [abt. 1701], or the date can be preceded by the word "circa," Latin meaning "about," or its abbreviation, "c."

When we have arrived at such approximate dates for the births of all the children, the advantage is the picture it gives us of the family as a whole. Perhaps our problem is the parentage of one Charles Evans, and we suspect that he belonged in the family whose approximate ages we have been working out. We know, let us say, from his age at death, that he was born about 1685. Let us suppose that the births of this group of children we worked out can be placed with extreme probability between 1698 and 1715. It then appears that our Charles, born about 1685, was more probably of the previous generation, possibly an uncle of the children whose ages we guessed.

For many reasons it is advantageous in doing genealogical research to consider the family group, not to look upon each ancestor as an isolated individual or as a mere link in the chain of descent. One of the most important reasons is that it enables us to check the chronology. Very often, the relation of dates determine or negate the possibility of an alleged line of descent or provide clues that might otherwise elude detection. It is a good idea to write out the full family history, or chart the relationships, while working, inclusive of guessed dates where positive dates are not known. It is a great aid to the memory, as well as to the imagination, if the eye can see the members of the family grouped together.

There is one technical matter that affects dates and needs to be studied in some detail if the genealogist is to understand and properly interpret the Old Style dates; this is the important calendar change of 1752. As few things are more confusing to the inexperienced searcher, a complete explanation of it will be given.

The Julian calendar was used throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. Its inaccuracy amounted to about three days in every four centuries. By the time the Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII( was adopted in 1582, calendar dates were ahead of actual time by ten days. Since actual time is the time it takes the earth for one complete revolution about the sun (a year), if the calendar had been left uncorrected, in the course of centuries the present summer months would have come in the winter, and vice versa.

Although the Roman Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the conservatism of the English, and the fact that the new calendar was sponsored by a pope, delayed the acceptance of it in Great Britain and her colonies until after the passage of an Act of Parliament in 1751. By this time, the old calendar was eleven days ahead of sun time, so the act provided that in 1752, the second day of September should be followed by the fourteenth. In other words, what would have been September 3rd was called September 14th, exactly eleven days being thus dropped out of the year.

The cause of the error was the addition of a day to the calendar each fourth year (leap year). This very nearly made the average year correspond with sun time, but not quite. In every 400 years as stated above, the calendar went three days ahead of sun time. The dropping of eleven days in 1752 brought the calendar back into harmony with sun time, and to provide against a recurrence of the trouble, it was also provided that on the even century years, no leap year day should be added except in centuries divisible by 400. The century years 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 will be. In this way, in the 400 years beginning with 1752, there will be three days less than there were in each 400 years preceding 1752, hence the old error will not be repeated.

So little did the people understand the need for the calendar revision that an angry mob gathered outside the Houses of Parliament, demanding that the eleven days filched out of their lives be restored to them. Actually, calling the third day of September the fourteenth did not deprive any person of eleven days of life any more than changing a man's name from Bill to Tom would make him a different person. The real effect was to make everyone born on or before 2 September 1752 eleven days older (by the new calendar) than the record of birth (in Old Style) would indicate. A child born on 2 September 1752 (the last day of Old Style calendar) would be, by the calendar, twelve days old on the following day, 15 September 1752 (the first day of New Style).

People do not like to be considered older than they really are, not even eleven days older. It was natural that those living in 1752 should "rectify" their birth dates. George Washington was born 11 February 1731/2. In 1752 the calendar change automatically made him eleven days older, so like most men of his generation, he rectified his birth date, making it 22 February 1732. The latter is the date on which he would have been born if the New Style calendar had been in effect in 1732.

Although it was ( and is) incorrect to change the dates prior to September 1752 in New Style, it was done to such an extent by those living in 1752 that the genealogist has to make allowances for it. Suppose, for example, that a group of brothers and sisters were born before the calendar change and in the town records the Old Style dates were used in entering their births. The first child was born, let us say, 25 May 1743. Now, after all the children had been born, the parents bought a Bible, say about 1765, and entered in it their own marriage and the births of the children, giving New Style dates for all the children, including those born before 1752 whose birthdays should properly have been entered Old Style. As a result, we find that the eldest child (whose birth in contemporary town records had been entered as 25 May 1743) was entered in the Bible as born 5 June 1743. Both dates are correct, but the former is the date that ought to be used, unless the latter has the words "New Style" added to indicate that it is a "rectified" date.

A further effect of this change must be mentioned. When a man died after 1752, assuming that he was born before September 1752 and his age at death was stated exactly in years, months, and days, the resultant date of birth (figured from the age at death) is the New Style date of birth, and therefore eleven days later against the recorded Old Style date of birth.

For example, Ephraim Burr, by his gravestone, died 29 April 1776, aged seventy-six years and thirteen days. Subtracting the age gives us 16 April 1700 for his birth, but of course to get the Old Style date then in use we must subtract eleven days more. His birth was not recorded, but he was baptized 14 April 1700, two days before his New Style date of birth. After subtracting the eleven days, we find that his real date of birth, in accordance with the Old Style calendar then in use, was 5 April 1700, which was nine days before he was baptized. Obviously he could not have been born two days after baptism, the result we get if we fail to make allowance for the calendar change.

It is very necessary that the genealogist, professional or amateur, should thoroughly understand this calendar change, or he will miss proofs of identity furnished by the comparison of birth records with stated ages at death. When a child was born before 1752 and the birth was recorded contemporaneously, add eleven days to the date to obtain the New Style equivalent. When a person born prior to September 1752 died after that date and the death record states that exact age, subtract the age from the date of death, and subtract eleven days more to obtain the Old Style equivalent.

Exact ages were not always stated, and unless the days are specified, the presumption is that the age is not exact. When the record states that a man died aged fifty years and eight months, he may have been that age to a day, but he may have been a few days over the fifty years and eight months. Recorders did not always bother to specify the age to a day, nor did those who had gravestones erected always so specify.

One other change made in 1752 was the date of beginning the new year. It is understood by everyone that between one spring and the next a year has elapsed, similarly between one autumn and the next. But when we assign numbers to the years for convenience in referring to them, it is necessary to begin the new year on a particular day. The succession of seasons and years is entirely natural, caused by the orbit of the earth about the sun. But selecting one certain day on which to start a new year is an artificial and an arbitrary thing. Consequently, various peoples in various ages have celebrated different New Year's days. Some of the ancient races ended their year with a harvest festival, and the Jews still retain that season. Others began the year with the vernal equinox, and since Easter fell near that season, the date quite generally used for the religious New Year's Day by Christians was 25 March. There was no uniformity in the early centuries, and some began the year on 25 December, the traditional birthday of Christ.

The only dates for New Year's Day which were in use in American colonial days among English settlers were 25 March and 1 January. The latter was the beginning of the legal year, while the former, as we have seen, had more religious significance. The Act of Parliament in 1751 established 1 January as New Years's Day for 1752 and subsequent years. Thereafter, we are not bothered by the confusion that existed when the year had two possible beginnings.

Now this change did not, like the dropping of eleven days, have any effect on the ages of persons then living. This will be seen if we suppose that it should be decided hereafter to celebrate the Fourth of July on Armistice Day. A person born 4 May would still be born on 4 May, and when New Year's Day was shifted from 25 March to 1 January, it did not affect the birthday of a man born on 4 May.

Some have misunderstood the change in New Year's Day and have supposed that it caused a difference of nearly three months in people's ages. When the names of the months of birth were entered, such a notion was unthinkable. Before 1700, the early recorders sometimes used the number of the month instead of its name. This was the practice of the Quakers, and it occasionally survived until a later period. Of course, March was then numbered as the first month, since New Year's Day fell in it, and dates before the twenty-fifth were considered as belonging to the first month, as well as dates after the twenty-fifth. April was the second month, and May the third. The early Quaker records were often very precise, stating that an event occurred "on the 10th of the 5th month which is called July."

When the number of the month was stated in any record prior to 1752, the genealogist should reckon March as the first month and February as the twelfth. If a record states that John Jones was born on the tenth of the fifth month, 1710, this must be Old Style, and means that he was born in July. After 1752, July became the seventh instead of the fifth month, but this does not alter the fact that John Jones was born in July.

Before 1752, there is likely to be some confusion with regard to dates between 1 January and 24 March, unless we know what New Year's Day a particular recorder used. It is apparent that if the year began 25 March, a man born on 20 February was born before the new year began, hence a year earlier than it would be by New Style. If 1710 began on 25 March, then a man born on 20 February following was born in 1710, since 1711 did not begin until the next month. Dates between 1 January and 24 March fell in the preceding year if Old Style was used; but if New Style was used, this threw all dates after 1 January into the new year.

The only problem in this connection is the year in which a man was born, and we always run the chance of an error of exactly a year if we do not know which calendar the recorder used. Before 1700, we can usually assume that the year began on 25 March, and this is true of most church registers until 1752. But after 1700, the use of 1 January was gradually coming into favor, especially in legal documents and town records.

Careful recorders used a double date, and when this was done all confusion or uncertainty was eliminated. George Washington was born 11 February 1731/2, which means that the year was still 1731 if the new year was reckoned as not beginning until 25 March, but that the year was already 1732 if it had begun 1 January. That is, it was 1731 Old Style or 1732 New Style. Genealogists should always copy the double date when it is given in the records, for the single date is an uncertain one. The date 11 February 1731, Old Style, is identical with 22 February 1732, New Style.

Sometimes records in Old Style look peculiar to us. In Norwich, Connecticut vital records, we read that Robert Wade married 11 March 1691/2 and his eldest child was born 11 March 1691. We may assume that the marriage occurred 11 March 1690/1, this recorder happening to use the later year date here because he was thinking March as the first month of the new year; the child was born January 1691/2, ten months later. It was still 1691, Old Style.

Remember that this confusion of year dates before 1752, applies only to dates between 1 January and 24 March, since all other dates belong to the same year regardless of when New Year's Day was celebrated.

Always remember to check the introduction to printed sources you use to determine whether adjustments have already been made to accommodate calendar changes. Many researchers believe that Quakers used the Julian calendar after 1752 and erroneously calculate dates into New Style. While the Quakers still refused to use the names of the months in their records, they did follow legislated changes in adjusting the calendar. Furthermore, Quaker record keepers sometimes noted the use of Old Style or New Style in post-1752 records.

Recently, I received a copy of a page from a newsletter that one of our members receives that described a formula to determine a date of birth from a tombstone inscription. The more I worked with the formula the more confused I became because I did not always get the correct answer. Therefore, I spent some time on the subject until I understood the procedure for calculating the birth date and I think I can properly explain the process to you.

Suppose the tombstone inscription states a person died 16 April 1904 aged 61 years 1 month, and 10 days. The calculation follows:

Year	Month	Day
1904	4	16	the date of death
- 61	1	10	minus the age of the person at death
1843	3	6	the birth date of the person would be 6 March 1843

The above calculation is straight forward and the answer is easy to see. We will use it as a basis to help count the days a person has lived beyond a number of months. It is easy to see that being born on the 6^th day of a month and living 1 month and 10 days by adding 10 days to 6^th the answer is the 16^th day of the month.

It can be more complex. Suppose a person died 22 Feb 1902 aged 85 years, 8 months, and 16 days. In this case, we have to borrow 12 months from the year in order to subtract the months in the age at death:

It gets a little more complicated when you have to borrow a month so the number of days will calculate (subtract) correctly. This entire process is basically just using logic. You can always take the birth date you calculate and prove it by adding the calculated birth date and age at death as we did in the above example.

In the following example, the age at death is 85 years 7 months and 18 days and we will use three different months for the date of death , 16 Sept 1900, 16 Dec 1900, and 16 Mar 1900 to show the difference in the number of days that are added for the calculations:

• On line 2 of the above examples, we have adjusted the dates by borrowing a month or year for the calculations of subtracting the age at death from the date of death.

• Line 5 is the proof line when we added the age at death (line 3) to the calculated birth date (line 4).

• Line 6 is adjusted dates. The result of the addition indicates the dates need to be adjusted as shown in line 6.

• In each case, we have a month and so many days and the month starts from the first. Therefore, in the first example (line 5) date 8^th month (Aug) has 31 days. Subtract 31 from 47, we get 16 which the death date the same date we started with on line 1.

• In the second example (line 5) date, November has 30 days, we subtract the 30 days and add the one month to Nov making the date 1900 12 16 the same as the original date.

• The third example (line 5) date, February has 28 days in 1900, we subtract the 28 days and add the month (makes 15 months), and also adjust the months for a year (subtract 12 from 15), we get 1900 3 16 the same date we started with. If the death year was a leap year, you would add and subtract 29 days for February. Remember the year 1900 has to be divisible by 400 for it to be a leap year.

The article sent in had these dates for one of its examples and it referred to Ancestry's Guide to Research.

1900	9	16	date of death	Ancestry has	1900	9	16
- 85	2	16	age at death		- 85	2	16
1815	6	30	calculated birth date	Ancestry has	1815	7	0

In Ancestry's Guide to Research, on page 180, they gave the birth date as 1815 7 1 (1 July 1815). The newsletter illustration borrowed 30 days for September which was the wrong month to borrow days from since the person only lived part of that month. These two different answers to the same problem triggered me into working out a solution.

Therefore, we have to use logic when the days calculate to 0. Reference is made to the first illustration in this article where the person was 61 years 1 month 10 days old when he died. In our first illustration, it was easy to see and count 10 days for the person living beyond the day of his birth. If the days calculate to 0, the birth date has to be the last day of the prior month. In this case June 30. If the calculated date had been 1815 3 0, the birth date would have February 28, but if it had been 1816 instead of 1815, the birth date would be February 29, leap year. Therefore, in this last illustration, the person lived 16 days beyond the day of his birth. The first could not be correct as given in Ancestry's Guide to Research, since that would have made the death day 17 (16 + 1).

This total procedure is a little difficult to explain. I hope this article will help you to avoid some of the pitfalls in making the adjustments to dates when necessary for calculations. You can make up your own dates and then adjust the age at death by one month and work it out for twelve different months and you will began to see how the differences occur in the dates.

Hopefully, you do not have a headache now and you can complete your reading of the journal.

In the journal, we have published information about calendar changes, estimating dates, how to calculate the date of birth from a tombstone, and a perpetual calendar. This will be a review of some of the data that has been presented and what to be aware of when you are doing your research. From the change in the calendar, we know:

1752 was the first year our current calendar was used 25^th of March was the first day of the year under the old calendar, prior to 1752 March is considered the 1^st month of the year using the old calendar December is 10^th month 11 days were dropped from the calendar in 1752 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years but 2000 is a leap year

Remembering the above items should be of some benefit when you are doing research that takes you to the years before 1752. We all know that George Washington was born on February 22^nd based on our current calendar. If we go to the encyclopedia, we will find that he was actually born on the 11^th of February 1732 (Old Style). The 11 days dropped from the calendar in 1752 have been added to his original birth date.

Dr. John Ewing, a twin son of Nathaniel and Rachel Porter Ewing, birth date has been published in books as being June 22, 1732. Looking at that date, we should think about it being before 1752 and what problems can that present. As reported in EWING in EARLY AMERICA by Margaret Ewing Fife, a John Ewing was born June 10, 1732 as it was recorded in the Saint Annes Episcopal Church of Cecil County, Maryland records. Since that date is taken from the original records, it might be best to show that it is the old style calendar; however, that should not be necessary. But, when that date was converted to the new style calendar, which is done by adding 11 days to the actual birth, the correct date of June 21, 1732 (new style or N.S.) should be indicated for the converted date. How else will the reader know that the author changed the date? Every item in genealogy records needs to be identified for the source.

With what we currently know about the calendar, we can say that the John Ewing born June 10, 1732 and John Ewing born June 21, 1732 (June 22 is incorrect) is the same person.

On page 24 of the May 1995 journal the following information from a cemetery record was given:

the calculated date, Sep 18, 1832, is different from the death date on the tombstone 18 Sep 1826 by 6 years. The death date for Mary is recorded as September 18, 1832 on page 52 of The Ewing Genealogy with Cognate Branches by Presley Kittredge Ewing the same date as the calculated date above. When all of this information is considered, you can realize that one piece of the information, age, birth, or death, is incorrect. The purpose here is to help you to use the information about dates and etc. that has been presented in prior journals.

The death date for Thomas Ewing born about 1695 who married Mary Maskell has been reported with different dates:

Died 28 Feb 1747/8 aged 52 from Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine page 41 month and year published is not known

Died 11 Mar 1748 (N.S.) from George Ewing, Gentleman, A Soldier of Valley Forge by Thomas Ewing

The above information for Thomas Ewing shows that a date can be confusing if the information is not properly identified when it is extracted from the original source. The identity of calendar needs to be maintained when information is taken from a source. In some cases, you might have information that would indicate you have two people by the same name being born about the same year. But, when you consider the change in the calendar, it is the same person.

In the DuBois book, he gives the death date for Maskell Ewing the first child of Thomas and Mary Maskell Ewing as April 16, 1796. On my family sheet for Thomas Ewing, I have a note of a second death date of Thursday, 7 April 1796. (I failed to mark where I got that information several years ago.) By using the Perpetual Calendar, I was able to establish that April 7, 1796 was a Thursday. In this case, there is only 9 days between the two dates. The Perpetual Calendar may help you with establishing the correct date.

In some cases, you might have information that would indicate you have two people by the same name being born about the same year. But, when you consider the change in the calendar, it turns out to be the same person.

Year	Month	Day
1902	2	22	the date of death
1901	14	22	borrowed a year (12 months), added 12 to the 2 for month
- 85	8	16	minus the age of the person at death
1816	6	6	the birth date is 6 June 1816
			by adding the age of the person at death to the calculated birth, we can prove the
1901	14	22	dates. This date has to be adjusted for the 14 months, by adding a year ans
+ 1	-12	0	subtracting 12 months, the new calculated date
1902	2	22	22 Feb 1902 is the same death date we started with

Line	Year	Mo	Da	Year	Mo	Da	Year	Mo	Da
1	1900	9	16	1900	12	16	1900	3	16	the date of death for each example
2	1900	8	47	1900	11	46	1899	14	44	month or a month and year borrowed
3	- 85	7	18	- 85	7	18	- 85	7	18	the age at death
4	1815	1	29	1815	4	28	1814	7	26	calculated birth date
5	1900	8	47	1900	11	46	1899	14	44	to prove add line 4 and age at death line3 and these dates have to be adjusted
6	1900	9	16	1900	12	16	1900	3	16