No, not that kind of double date

So there you are doing your family history searching and you come across a date that says 1718/19 and you may wonder why the researcher can't figure out which date is the real date. Fear not, if you get far enough back in history, you will encounter the double date -- and not like the kind where you go to the soda shop.

Genealogy.com has a good explanation of double dating and how to understand the basics of how it comes into play. I have copied the exact information from their web site and added some additional links to help you flesh out some of the people, places and things...

Double date

Beginning in 45 B.C., many parts of the world used the Julian calendar to mark the passage of time. According to the Julian calendar, March 25 was the first day of the year and each year was 365 days and 6 hours long. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII determined that the Julian calendar was incorrect: each day was just a little bit too long. This meant that the human calendar wasn't keeping up with nature's calendar, and the seasons kept arriving slightly earlier in the year. To solve the problem, Pope Gregory XIII created the Gregorian calendar. This is the calendar that we use officially in the United States. As you know, this new calendar changed the first day of the year from March 25 to January 1. Pope Gregory also had everyone jump ahead by 10 days to make up for the days that were lost when the world was using the old Julian calendar.

The practice of writing double dates resulted from this switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, and also from the fact that not all countries and people accepted the new calendar at the same time. For example, England and the American colonies didn't officially accept the new calendar until 1752. Before 1752, the English government still observed March 25 as the first of the year, but most of the population observed January 1 as the first of the year. For this reason, many people wrote dates falling between January 1 and March 25 with both years, as in the following examples.

Julian or Old Style           Gregorian or New Style           Double Date
                       
December 25, 1718           December 25, 1718           December 25, 1718
                       
January 1, 1718                 January 1, 1719                  January 1, 1718/19
                       
February 2, 1718               February 2, 1719                February 2, 1718/19
                       
March 20, 1718                March 20, 1719                  March 20, 1718/19
                       
March 25, 1719                March 25, 1719                  March 25, 1719

By the time England and the colonies adopted the new Gregorian calendar, the discrepancy between the two calendars was eleven days, instead of ten. To resolve the discrepancy, the government ordered that September 2, 1752 be followed by September 14, 1752. Some people also added 11 days to their birth dates (a fact which is not noted on their birth certificates).

Thanks for stopping past -- hope this information is helpful to your family history / genealogical research.



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