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Archiver > GenMassachusetts > 2007-01 > 1169516806


From: "Allyssa Edwards" <>
Subject: Re: [GENMASSACHUSETTS] Date conversion help please
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:46:46 -0500
References: <cba.96312a5.32e6c12f@aol.com>
In-Reply-To: <cba.96312a5.32e6c12f@aol.com>


sooo. was I correct about the 11 mo being february?

On 1/22/07, <> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> The Julian Calendar which was introduced in Rome in 46 B.C. established
> the
> 12 month year of 365 days with each fourth year having 366 days and each
> month
> had 30 or 31 days except February which had 28 or, every leap year, 29
> days.
> The problem with this calendar was that after nearly 1600 years it was no
> longer synchronized with the seasons.
>
> The Gregorian Calendar was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII to
> correct a slight error in the Julian calendar, but the new calendar was
> not adopted
> by Great Britain or the American colonies until approximately 1752.
>
> When reading about colonial times, one often comes across a date
> designated
> as Old Style or simply a date such as 1675/76. I always wondered what that
> double date meant. I found the answer to this question quite by accident
> as I
> was reading A History of Hatfield Massachusetts by D. W. Wells and R. F.
> Wells.
> These two chroniclers were writing about a will made by a gentleman on
> January 29, 1659-60 and explained it as follows. "In the old style
> reckoning
> [Julian calendar], March 25 was the beginning of the year. After the
> adoption of
> the new style, or Gregorian calendar, January 1 was taken as the
> beginning of
> the year and double dates are often used to indicate the time between
> Jan. 1
> and Mar. 25. (pp. 22-23)
>
> Therefore, Mary Rowlandson was captured on February 10, 1675 according to
> the OS (Julian) calendar which would have been the calendar she used. Once
> the
> Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian, the date would have fallen in that
> January 1 through March 25 range. So subsequent historians would designate
> the
> event as happening in 1675/76.
> Reference: Wells, D. W. and R. F. Wells. 1910. A History of Hatfield
> Massachusetts.
>
>
> F.C.H. Gibbons, Springfield, Massachusetts.
>
>
>
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--
~*~ Allyssa (Boston, Ma, USA) ~*~
researching lotsa lines in the US and UK.

http://branches.fieryangel.net/leaves
(very old but it lists some of the lookups I can do)

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