I thought this was very intresting and thought it could answer some of the
questions with the more than one year dates.
Sheryl
READ THE ENTIRE TUTORIAL ON THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/dates.html
Written for genealogist and historians
{EXCERPT]
The first day of the year used to begin on 25 March in conjunction with the
Feast of the Annunciation. It was not until the dates given below that the
beginning of the year was changed to 1 January.
1522 Venice
1544 Germany
1556 Spain, Portugal, Roman Catholic Netherlands
1559 Prussia Denmark, Sweden
1564 France
1579 Lorraine
1583 Protestant Netherlands
1600 Scotland
1725 Russia
1721 Tuscany
In your family history researches, if you come across a year written as
1840-45 you rightly interpret that as meaning "in the period from 1840 to
1845," the years being understood to be inclusive.
If you see a date written as 2nd March 1735/6 you might think it means the
year is uncertain even though the date is known. Wrong! This way of writing
a date has a special meaning which all historians need to know about. This
article explains how this apparent vagueness is actually a means of
specifying a date with precision and without ambiguity, and why we need, not
only to understand the notation used, but also to use it ourselves if we are
to avoid being misunderstood.
In England the Gregorian calendar was not adopted until 1752, and the start
of year date was changed to 1st January by the same Act of Parliament. The
day following 31st December 1751 was decreed to be 1st January 1752 and 2nd
September 1752 was followed by 14th September. As England had taken the year
1700 to be a leap year, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian
calendars now amounted to eleven days. The changes were to apply to all the
Dominions of the British Crown, including of course the North American
colonies, and will be the ones most of interest to family historians reading
this article.
Note that, whatever notation is used, it only has meaning in the period 1st
January to 24th March each year (and of course for England and its colonies
only before 1752). From 25th March to 31st December the year number is the
same in both Styles so no special indication is necessary
------------------------------------------------------
Whitaker's Almanack 1994 (126th edition)
"Calendar" in Encyclopaedia Britannica
Cheney C R (ed.) Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, London
1948.
Examine this English calendar for the year 1752
and note the missing days between 2 and 14 Sept.
___________________________________________
SEPTEMBER 1752 Great Britain and Dominions
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1 2 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30
___________________________________________
READ THE ENTIRE TUTORIAL ON THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/dates.html
Written for genealogist and historians
____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at
http://webmail.netscape.com.