So you’ve found that elusive colonial era document and you see that your ancestor was born 22 January 1688/89. Your first impulse might be to ignore it, or maybe just assume that someone in the 17th century wasn’t really sure of the exact year.
Actually, 1688/89 is absolutely correct! But it’s a little complicated to explain. (There’s a small but clever chart toward the end that will help explain). Way back in the early Roman Empire, those BCE years, civilization had a difficult time keeping a calendar year lasting, well, a calendar year. In the very early days, September, which has a root root meaning “7″, was the 7th month. Thus, October, 8th month; November 9th month; December, 10th month. You see, the problem was that 10 months of 30 days or so each didn’t “last” a full year based on the very natural occurrence of the vernal equinox. So the powers that be would do the simplest thing they could: Add however many days you needed to keep this running smoothly. However, things didn’t really run smoothly.
So, the length of the year is finally long enough to last a year, right? Wrong! So again, the empire took the easy way out: If you need to add a few days here, a few days there, no problem. As long as the pesky calendar would last a full year! After all, they had to perform certain rituals at certain times of the year to appease the gods. You had to keep the gods happy for a whole spectrum of reasons: no flooding, bountiful crops, fertility, natural disasters like volcanoes (Where did the good people of Pompeii do wrong?) and various other human calamities.
The irregularity affected so many aspects of life in the empire, that somebody had to do something. Along comes the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. First we have a good reason to add at least 2 months to the calendar: July for Julius and August for Augustus. We can discuss exactly how these came about but it’s not to important for this discussion. But Julius was responsible for many great achievements, he’s also credited for the Julian Calendar. 12 months, 365 days with a leap year every four years.
Fixed? No! After a few centuries, they began to realize that a year was now a year plus! How did they know? Back to the natural arrival of the vernal equinox. It was off by about 10 days in 1582. By the 16th century, the addition of approximately 3 days every 400 years was once again causing havoc with the calendar. So along comes Pope Gregory and his advisers. They actually shortened the year and made a huge one time adjustment. Suffice to say that what we now know as the Gregorian Calendar works, sort of. But that’s yet another story. We have to get back to our double dates or no one will finish reading this post!
Most European countries adopted the Gregorian Calendar with the notable exception of the British Empire. Remember that “thing” between Henry VIII and Rome? The English were not ready to jump on a plan that was generated by theRoman Catholic Church. So the British Empire including all of her colonies were staunch Julians. Also, a big factor in double dates had to do with a simple problem: When did the new year start? With all the Gregorian adapters, January 1st was the conventional start of the new year. But those cheeky English continued to celebrate the new year on March 25th, or “Lady’s Day”.
So we’re finally at the end of the story and I’m ready to put the last pieces in the puzzle. If the British considered March 25th the new year, but everybody else considered January 1st the new year, then it makes sens that some people thought that 22 January 1688 was really 1689 because January 1st was the start of the new year; 1688 became 1689. But the British considered January 22nd to be 1688 because the new year, 1689, didn’t start until March 25th. To part of the world, January 22nd was 1688 and to everyone else January 22nd was 1689. Thus, you’ll see January 22nd written “22 January 1688/89″ or “January 22, 1688/89″.
Because the British new year was March 25th, double dates are only used from approximately 1582 until 1752 and only on the days between January 1st (The new style new year) to March 24th (The 25th was old style new year).
Why 1752? That’s the year the British finally adopted the Gregorian calendar for the entire empire including the American colonies. Maybe this will help:
A couple of “small” details: 1) The change in calendar necessitated that 12 days would vanish! The day after September 2, 1752 was September 14, 1752; 2) Russia didn’t “Go Gregorian” until 1918. The Russian Empire kept itself pretty much isolated for a very long time! They also had a little problem with Rome. Then they had this revolution problem! 3) Greece (finally) converted in the 1920′s a little after their revolution problems…
Excellent article/blog +Dave thanks for sharing! That is going to help a lot of people, may I share it on my blog?
ReplyDeleteIndeed! I'd love to spread a few of my blogs "around the world"! Thanks for the compliment.
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