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Miscellaneous

On Cemeteries The Calendar

 

On cemeteries

 (from the Colorado Genealogist, August, 1999)

"If you have spent any time at all wandering through a cemetery looking for graves of you loved ones, you know that a cemetery is not a place simply to bury the person who has passed on; it is alive with memories.  It has a certain joy and peace about it when you know that each person who is buried there was once a vital person who made a contribution to this world.  ..."

 

Another View

from "Chippings with a Chisel" in TWICE-TOLD TALES by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  ... 

This incident reminds me of a young girl--a pale, slender, feeble creature most unlike the other rosy and healthful damsels of the Vineyard, amid whose brightness she was fading away.  Day after day did the poor maiden come to the sculptor's shop and pass from one piece of marble to another, till at last she penciled her name upon a a slender slab which, I think, was of a more spotless white than all the rest.  I saw her no more, but soon afterward found Mr. Wigglesworth cutting her virgin-name into the stone which she had chosen.

"She is dead, poor girl!" said he, interrupting the tune he was whistling, "and she chose a good piece of stuff for her headstone.  Now, which of these slabs would you like best to see your own name upon?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, my good Mr. Wigglesworth," replied I, after a moment's pause, for the abruptness of the question had somewhat startled me--"to be quite sincere with you, I care little or nothing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat inclined to skepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all over the dust that once was human.  The weight of these heavy marbles, though unfelt by the dead corpse or the enfranchised soul, presses drearily upon the spirit of the survivor and causes him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with the freedom of the skies.  Every gravestone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system.  Our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly, not linger with the exudiæ that confined him.  In truth and reason, neither those whom we call the living, and still the departed, have anything to do with the grave."

"I never heard anything so heathenish," said Mr. Wigglesworth, perplexed and displeased at sentiments which controverted all his notions and feeling and implied the utter waste, and worse, of his whole life's labor.  "Would you forget your dead friends the moment they are under the sod?"

"They are not under the sod," I rejoined; "then why should I mark the spot where is no treasure hidden?"  Forget them?  No; but, to remember them aright, I would forget what they have cast off.  And to gain the truer conception of death I would forget the grave,"

 

THE CALENDAR

from The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val Greenwood

Calendar difficulties may come as a surprise to you unless you have either studied astronomy or have a good background in history. However, the calendar and its transition from the Julian to the Gregorian system and other changes involved therewith have considerable impact on many early American genealogical problems.

The main problem has to do with the changing of the calendars—when the switch was made from the Julian to the Gregorian. In Britain and her colonies (which included most colonies in America) this took place in 1752.1 Remember that date; it is important. During the period while the Julian Calendar was used, the Christian church and the countries within which that church prospered used what we call an ecclesiastical calendar (dating back to the Nicean Council of 325 A.D.) which had New Year's Day falling on March 25. This was the day of the Feast of the Annunciation (commonly called Lady Day) which commemorates the visit of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she would be the mother of the Messiah.2 Note that this date is exactly nine months before Christmas, when we celebrate that birth.

Let's take an example to show the effects of this situation. You have several documents (such as wills) recorded in chronological order. The dates on these might run something like this:

November 14, 1718

December 26, 1718

January 3, 1718

January 22, 1718

February 16, 1718

March 5, 1718

March 23, 1718

March 28, 1719

April 12, 1719

This is very simple, isn't it? The main difficulty here is that we are accustomed to beginning our years on January 1, so when we see a date like one of these (say February 16, 1718) we automatically put it in the wrong year—and we are automatically one year off.

One year off isn't bad, you say? That is true unless it leads you to make incorrect conclusions. If the record in question happens to be a church register and the christenings, etc., of your ancestor's children are recorded therein, you may have a problem. Let's say you find two christenings on the following dates for persons you suppose are your ancestor's children:

April 1, 1720

March 22, 1720

II you didn't know that the year 1721 began three days after the second of these two christenings, what would be your conclusion?

Or, what about the case of the man who draws his will in October of 1692 and that will is admitted to probate in February 1692? What would you think?

Because of this problem we use what we call double-dating. This means that whenever a date falls between January 1 and March 24, inclusive, before 1752, it should be recorded to reflect both the ecclesiastical and the historical calendars. You do this by writing the dates in the previous list as follows:

November 14, 1718

December 26, 1718

January 3, 1718/9

January 22, 1718/9

February 16, 1718/9

March 5, 1718/9

March 23, 1718/9

March 28, 1719

April 12, 1719

And the two christening dates given earlier should be written:

April 1, 1720

March22, 1720/1

And the dates on the will would actually be October 1692 and February 1692/3.

This double-dating indicates that the year was actually (in the case of the christening) 1720, but that if the year had begun on January 1 as it now does, then it would have been 1721. Very simple, isn't it?

There was some pressure for the change to January 1 before it actually took place officially in 1752, and it is not uncommon to find double-dating used in many of the early records, especially after 1700. Some Christian countries were using the new system as early as 1582.

You may also find double-dating used incorrectly in these records on occasion, but do not let this alarm you. You can usually make the corrections. For example, you may find a date incorrectly written as "April 12, 1718/9." This is much the same problem that we have today when we keep writing the old year for a month or so after the new year has begun. It would be corrected to 1719. You might also see some double-dating after 1752. This is merely a case where the writer either had a habit of writing dates that way or was just opposed to change.

Also, since the year began in March, you will find March referred to as the first month, April as the second month, and so on. So when you see the months written as 7ber and 8ber (before 1752) they actually mean September and October and not July and August. In Latin, September and October mean seventh month and eighth month, respectively. The same applies to November and December—they mean ninth month and tenth month. But, regardless of name, the other months were also numbered differently. You may find it helpful to remember this—it makes quite a difference.

 1 The Dutch in New Netherland never used the Julian Calendar. The Dutch had accepted the Gregorian Calendar prior to their American colonization. These people even continued to use New Style dates in their private records after England had control of their colony. The Quakers did not accept the ecclesiastical calendar but began their year on January 1 even though they otherwise accepted the dates of the Julian Calendar.

2 Luke 1:26-28.

Moral: If a double-date is given, use the second year for computing ages…