A couple of weeks ago I asked on several Lists for information about "Jaj
dates". Several Listers gave me some valuable information, and others
suggested several links to other sources. As a result, I think I now have
about all the information that seems to be readily available on the subject
and I thought that it would be useful for me to consolidate the information
from the various sources and post it for anyone else who is interested. I
want to thank all those Listers who sent me suggestions and information (you
know who you are ..), and in particular Doug Nicol, James Irvine and Janet
Connochie, from whom I have plagiarized shamelessly.
I had asked about dates I have encountered in several old documents from the
1500s & 1600s which show the dates as something like "Jaj vi & fyftie"
(for
the year 1650), or another for 1690 which gives the year as "J af vi ch and
nyntie yeirs". Here is what I learned:
This form of writing dates was very commonly used in Scottish documents
during the 16th through early 18th centuries, and was a corrupted rendering
of the date in Roman numerals. Handwriting prior to 1710 or 1720 can be hard
to read because the modern style of Italianate cursive handwriting had not
yet been fully accepted among the literate of Scotland until well into the
18th century.
A date such as 1690 in Roman numerals would be MDCXC or MDCLXXXX, but Scots
documents used a corrupt form of latinised roman numerals. The "M" got
changed to "im" or "jm" (meaning "one + thousand"), and then
"jm" became
corrupted to "jaj". It appears that we will have to take this last step on
faith - I have found no explanation of why "m" became "aj" (or
"ai"). The
"Jaj" was apparently actually pronounced as it looks: jaaj).
It is fairly easy to see how the "600" became written in a corrupted form of
the Roman "DC", as "vi c". The last "i" was often written
as "j", e.g. 6 as
"vj", or 7 as "vij". The "c" is sometimes very small, but
Jaj v(i) c is very
common. In several of the cases I have seen, the "c" was missing (much like
we tended to omit the "hundred" after the "nineteen" when saying
"1999", for
example). In others it is shown as "ch" or `C†’, a contraction of the Latin
word `centus’.
The decades and units of the year were then often spelled out, as in the
following examples:
1501 jaj vc and one yeirs
1650 jaj vjc and fyftie yeirs
1690 jaj vjc and nyntie yeirs
1720 jaj vijc and tuentie yeirs
It appears that this type of date designation is neither a "regnal date"
(based on the years of the reign of a particular king or queen), nor some
Jacobite code for "James", both of which were suggested by several Listers.
There is an interesting site on this subject, SCAN (Scottish Archives
Network), with links to similar topics:
http://www.scan.org.uk/researchrtools/handwriting/tipscontents.htm
From there go to tips on numbers & dates, then "Jaj
dates"
Ken Harrison
North Vancouver, Canada
mcharrison(a)compuserve.com
HARRISON Yorkshire, Staffordshire, London (Highgate/Hampstead)
POTCHIT Yorkshire
FISHER London (Highgate/Hampstead)
GRIFFIN Staffordshire
STANLEY Staffordshire
SMELLIE Lanark, Orkney, Glasgow, Tasmania
STIRRAT Ayrshire & Glasgow
BAIN Caithness
MILLER Caithness, Swaziland
SPENCE Orkney
TRAILL Orkney
SELKRIG Lanark
WICKETSHAW Lanark
MORRISON Perthshire, Islay, Dumbarton, Glasgow, Australia (Vic)
BAIRD Renfrew
HAM Australia (Vic)
THOMPSON Suffolk
AGGUS Suffolk
BRIGHTWELL Suffolk
LAWSON Clackmannan
McNABB Islay
MURRAY Dumfries, Renfrew
GILLESPIE Dumfries
HENDERSON Dumfries
TICKET (TAKET) Dumfries
CALDWELL Tyrone, Renfrew
GRAHAM Tyrone, Ontario
Genealogists never die ... they just lose their census.