Calendar Changes

THE calendar was changed in 1752. In that year Britain swapped over from
the Julian calendar - introduced in the time of Julius Caesar and which we
had had for many centuries - to the Gregorian calendar, introduced into
most of Europe in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Until then, the New Year had always started in Britain on Lady Day, March
25th. At the time of the changeover Britain, because of the inaccurate calendar,
 had fallen 11 days behind the rest of Europe, so in 1752, 11 days were
 removed altogether in order to bring the country into line. 
In that year, September 2nd was followed by September 14th. It is
said there were riots in the streets of London and other cities because the
ordinary people believed the government was stealing 11 days from their
lives!

This event is very important to us as family historians, since it is easy
to get the year wrong when writing dates between January 1 and March 24
before 1752. I came up against this a while ago when I found the marriages
of two sets of my 5-times gt-grandparents in Kirkby Malham in the Yorkshire
Dales. One couple were married on December 25 1747 and the other couple on
March 13 1747. However, when looking at the film of the parish registers I
realised from the order in which the marriages had been entered that the
second marriage on March 13, was AFTER the December one, thus the date has
to be written thus: March 13 1747/8. This is the style you should adopt
when entering any event between January 1 and March 24 inclusive, prior to
1752. Before 1752 dates are called Old Style and after 1752 New Style. Do
remember this, you newcomers to genealogy, when researching in pre-1752
documents such as registers and Bishops' Transcripts, etc., and to take
account of it. A date of, say, February 21st 1644 in England and Wales (but
not Scotland, see below), is actually February 21st 1645 in modern terms.
This can be very significant if you start looking at how soon after a
marriage a first child is born!!!

Some family tree programs enter pre-1752 dates in Old Style automatically.

There is a curious survival to this day of this quirk in our calendar
system, which is the fact that we start the financial year on April 5th.
This is because the merchants, bankers and money lenders of the City of
London always refused to accept the new calendar because they thought it
meant they were losing three months' interest on their money They insisted
that as far as they were concerned the year still began on Lady Day, March
25th, and what was more they were having their 11 days back as well. So
they added the 11 days to March 25th and arrived at April 5th as the start
of the financial year. 

Of course, you also see traces of the old calendar in the Latin names of
the months of September (the 7th month), October (the eighth), November
(the ninth) and December (the tenth). Those of you with Quaker ancestors
will know that they didn't name the months but always called them "the
First Month" and so on. Therefore, prior to 1752 "the First Month" in
Quaker records means March and after 1752 it became "the Third Month".

Another thing you have to watch out for is that if you are tracing Scottish
ancestry.  Scotland actually changed to having January as the start of the
year on January 1st 1600. Therefore, a date of February 21st 1644 in
Scottish records means exactly as it would today. However, the change to
the Gregorian calendar did not take place in Scotland until 1752, at the
same time as England and Wales changed.