FAMILY SEARCHER
by Nina Brawn
In genealogy, one of the most important facts you will deal with is a date. In my most recent column I offered a brief explanation of the difference between the Gregorian calendar we use today, and the older Julian calendar. The change to current dates occurred in the 1500s but was not accepted here until the mid-1700s. This is why in old records you will find reference to dates such as 5/16 March 1752/3.
There are also changes in the terms people use in referring to time. In reading old letters you will find phrases we no longer use, such as instant and ultimo. For example, if I wrote a letter on April 30th, 2009 and wrote, “Dear James, In your letter of the 16th instant, you mentioned your new home,” I would be referring to a letter James wrote to me on April 16th, or this month. If instead, I had written, “Dear James, In your letter of the 16th ultimo, you mentioned your new home.” I would be referring to a letter written March 16th, or last month.
The phrase “Tuesday last” meant, the most recently passed Tuesday, “June last” would mean “June 2011” because we are still in June, the most recently passed June was 2010. “Tuesday next” would mean the soonest Tuesday to arrive. “September next” would be September 2011. (The proper use of “Next” is a term that my husband, Fred, and I still can’t seem to agree upon).
Another change we don’t give much thought to is the significance of the day of the week. Nowadays, we attach a great deal of significance to “weekends”. Weekends are a fairly recent “invention”, which is why most weddings now are on Saturdays. But it has not always been so.
If you are interested in learning on what day of the week a past event occurred, you will need a perpetual calendar. You can find them on the Internet, in encyclopedias, or your local friendly librarian can help you find this reference. There is also a formula to figure it out for yourself, but it is too complicated for me either to use or to quote here.
The last issue I want to discuss is how to write the date, and you probably won’t like it, but I recommend the “Day, Alphabetic Month, four digit year” format – 16 April 2009, no commas, no abbreviations. Here is my reasoning: this is currently the most commonly used format in genealogy; using commas can make numbers look like other numbers when written carelessly; separating numbers with the letters of the month prevents errors caused by the day and year numbers running together; using all four digits in the year prevents confusing the century, especially the 1800s and 1900s; and finally, by always writing the full month, it avoids mistaking “Jan” for “Jun”, or “Mar” for “May”, etc. I resisted this myself, for a while, until I found I was running into questions in rereading my own notes.
So consider your format options: choose one, and use it for all your genealogy. You’ll be glad you did.
Editor’s note: This regular column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society. The group meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501. Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com.
