How to enter Julian calendar dates?

[jseaman 0]

As I'm sure most are aware, under the old Julian Calendar, the New Year began on March 25th. The Gregorian Calendar was not adopted in Britain until 1752.

Recently I've had the good fortune to see a brick wall come crashing down and now I find myself concerned with many more such dates!

How does one enter them and make them clear?

Say a date of 18 Feb 1630 Julian calendar = 18 Feb 1631 Gregorian calendar ... what date gets entered?

Or is there even more to it that I haven't caught on to?

[Cor Kuipers 0]

Maybe this is what you're looking for

http://www.stevemorse.org/jcal/julian.html

Cor

[jseaman 0]

No, I'm not asking how to convert ... I'm asking which dating method I should use in entering info on births/deaths etc.

Should I enter the date from the Julian dating system in use at the time of the event ... or should I convert that Julian date to the current dating system and enter that one.

My feelings say I should convert the older dates so it is more straight forward to calculate ages and things like how many years ago, etc.

Opinions?

[Cor Kuipers 0]

it is only a difference of 10 days.

Between birth and baptizing are a number of days, weeks etc. as in the old days only the baptize is recorded so there is a difference anyway.

Cor

 

Edited May 12, 2015 by Cor Kuipers

[DelG 0]

"Should I enter the date from the Julian dating system in use at the time of the event ... or should I convert that Julian date to the current dating system and enter that one."

In my opinion, consistency is most important so enter all your dates in the current Gregorian calendar system which will be correct for the vast majority of dates you encounter. Generally, you would only encounter a Julian date in old records if you find an actual entry (such as a church register) - in those cases you would convert the date to Gregorian with an explanatory Note giving the (appropriate by country) Julian date. Also, you might consider creating a gedcom Custom Event for 'Julian Date' if you wished to track those dates that way.

[DelG 0]

As if it were not confusing enough, the Quakers had a different approach to calendar months because many of the months were named after Pagan gods:

Quaker Dating:  Explanation of Dating system  By Jim Small

[Valkrider 0]

I am of the opinion that you record what is in the original document and not change it to suit what you think you know.

I always record the date / name etc exactly as they are in the original record regardless.

You can always use a Note to qualify the entry.

[jseaman 0]

I remain torn.

I use political boundaries that were in place at the time of the event ... adding a note explaining when they changed and the current name.

It would make sense to do the same with dates ... but 

I would like to see date calculations for ages be accurate so it would make sense to use modern dating with notes about the original method.

I'm going to go take an early nap.