[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Julian and Gregorian Dates in Lipno

[Earl.Schultz]

Gary & Others,

You made an interesting comment with respect to writing dates as 12/06/1900
and I'm surprised we haven't resolved this matter once and for all.  The
International Standards Association (or whatever they are called) has
accepted the format YYYY/MM/DD or 1900/06/12 (1900 June 12).  Years ago as a
member of the Ontario Genealogical Society I participated in a survey that
resulted in them deciding to write all dates as YYYY/MM/DD.  I believe that
Salt Lake City has also accepted that format.  It does not lead to
misunderstandings (or at least much less chance) and all other time is
written from largest to smallest as in HH:MM:SS (hours/minutes/seconds).  It
is about time all genealogists adopt this format for the sake of accuracy.

Earl Schultz

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:49:54 -0700
From: Gary Warner <gary at warnerengineering.com>
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Julian and Gregorian Dates in Lipno
	Records
To: "LMPauling" <lmpauling at utech.net>,	"SGGEE Mailing List"
	<ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20060817102647.07ffc3e8 at warnerengineering.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed

Linda,

I am certainly no expert on the use of the two
calendars, but I will take a stab at it.

First, there is a nifty calendar converter at
http://www.calendarhome.com/converter/

For those of you not familiar with the two
calendars, there are also written discussions on
the two calendars at a number of places,
including
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
The Russians continued to use the old calendar until after World War I.

Second, my guess is that in the early 1800s in
Poland that the date being used was the old
Julian calendar, but I do not know for certain,
since most of the rest of Europe had already
changed to the modern Gregorian calendar by that
time.    Do you have records where the same
pastor suddenly changed from using both dates to
only a single date?   If so, you may be able to
determine which calendar he was using at that
time if the next entry was less than two weeks later.

Finally, why are you supposing that you need
anyone's permission to record a date based on
either calendar?    Yes, we would like to get all
of the dates based on the same calendar, but I
have no idea which calendar anyone is using when
they give SGGEE data.    The only dates that I am
pretty sure are correct are those where they
provide both dates for the event.    Not all
family history programs will do that,
however.      I believe that most people are
using the Gregorian date when submitting data,
but that is only a guess until I see that date
conflict with a date submitted by someone else.

One last thing, and not directly related to your
questions Linda.   I am seeing some date
conflicts in the data submitted by members.    It
is very apparent that some of you, who shall
remain unnamed, are taking notes in short hand
when copying dates from other records.    Those
unnamed people are obviously making hand written
notes that say something like 12/06/1900.   The
problem is that this date can mean two different
dates, depending on which part of the world you
live in.    In some parts of the world, the above
date is December 6, 1900, and in other places the
date is June 12, 1900.    NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use
such short hand notations.   If you do, your data
entry will likely be incorrect.

Gary Warner