Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Calendar Quandaries

The way we recognize the passage of time is an interesting study in and of itself.  Over the centuries, we've slowly shifted toward a more unified system for determining the months and days, though there are still some old traditions and religions to keep different systems alive.  Today I'd like to go over an interesting element concerning an issue that may arise with reviewing historical documents, most notably those of English origin.

When the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in the late 16th Century, a lot of countries, including England, refused to "adapt" for quite a while, and those who had changed over called us fools for sticking with the less precise calendar we'd always used.  Part of it was a political game, as Protestant countries didn't want to follow the new Catholic Calendar, but that's a whole other story.

Doing genealogical research, the disparity of the two calendars becomes quite apparent, with the "dual date months" that start to appear.  When you run across birthdays, anniversaries, etc... that take place during January, February, and March in years prior to 1752 in the English speaking world, you have to keep in mind that the year of the event is actually incorrect, for they continued to recognize the first day of the year as March 25th.  Say you have an ancestor born February 5, 1690 in Salem, Massachusetts.  If they were truly born in 1690 by our current standard, the birth record would list their birth as 1689, because the "New Year" wouldn't have happened yet by their record.  This is something important to remember if you ever have access to a time machine.  You might show up a year too late for an event!

Of course, if you run into Russian dates, it's even worse.  They didn't switch to the Gregorian calendar until the Communists took over.  Imagine that, it took the Commies to adopt a Catholic creation!

I suppose all these calendar quandaries will be null and void soon.  After all, the Mayan calendar is about to end on December 21, so we're all doomed.  Doomed!  Well, maybe not.

10 comments:

  1. Hi, well, one calendar is all I can be concerned with and that is difficult enough. Just keeping track of birthdays of children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends, plus medical appointments keeps me on my toes. Ha ha ha.
    Thanks for the info about calendars.
    Ruby

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  2. Doomed! Doomed! Reminds me of the melodramas our am-dram group used to put of at Christmas parties. You should always clutch your breast with one hand and put the other wrist to the forehead - this ensures that you are hamming it up to the correct level of awfulness.

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  3. Interesting stuff. I keep forgetting the calendar was switched so recently. I'm hoping to visit all the blogs on the A-Z Challenge in April.

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  4. this was a fun and informative post!

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  5. Hello, another blog I've only fell into because of the A to Z Challenge but one I've bookmarked. I really found your calendar post interesting and I love the post about your Dads birthday especially the scan of his card. What a lovely thing to find.

    I'll be heading over to the Facebook link too that sounds really exciting. Can't wait to see you tomorrow for D. When I have my children ensconced in bed later, I'm going to pop back for a nosey at your earlier posts.

    I'm doing a Doctor Who themed/based blog for my challenge, I'll put the link here but there really is no pressure. Good luck with the rest of the challenge. See you tomorrow.

    Itsmotherwho.blogspot.co.uk

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    1. You had me at "Doctor Who." I've been a fan since childhood. I'll definitely be checking out your blog later!

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  6. Martin, did the Mayans take into consideration Leap Years? Just wondering.

    Stephen Tremp
    Co-host A to Z Challenge.

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    1. Indeed, the Mayans did account for the extra quarter of a day per year. Their calendar was incredibly accurate, even more so than our current Gregorian calendar. I'll have to bone up on the Mayan calendar a bit and do a follow-up post about it someday.

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  7. Interesting! I knew about the change to when a year was held to start, but the resulting possible confusion over which actual year a historical Jan/Feb/Mar date falls in never occurred to me.

    Since you're a sci-fi/fantasy writer (me too), I'll play to our shared interest and add that this is an important thing to remember when worldbuilding, as well. It's rare for any civilisation to have a straightforward and accurate calendar that covers the whole of its history.

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