Many of you have asked what the Gregorian/Julian Calendar business is all about, and all - especially those who are writing family history - should know.

Here is an excellent website that I use for those countries from which I have ancestry.  Notice that you can also learn the day of the week on which an ancestor was born, making that birth a tad more interesting.  My Drury Drake was born on Friday, Jan. 1, 1767.  Seems a bit more real when written, than simply giving you that date without the day of the week, huh?

In short, when you went to bed in the American colonies on the evening of Sept. 2, 1752, you woke up on the morning of Sept. 14, and while New Years Day had been last observed that previous March 25th, 1752, from that day forward the observance would take place, as now, on Jan. 1st.

This causes some interesting little puzzles.  If you were to ask Geo. Washington's Mom in what year he was born, she would have most certainly and correctly told you it was Feb. 22, 1731, yet we say 1732, all because of that shift in calendars.  Then too, the goofy formulas floating about now concerning calculating birth days from headstones that say, for example, "90 years, 3 months and 15 days" do NOT work, unless adjusted by you, if that ancestor was born prior to that Sept. 14, 1752 date.

I encourage all to bookmark this site, since Germany, France. Italy, and many others changed their calendars during DIFFERENT years, some as early as 1582.       <http://www.norbyhus.dk/calendar.html>

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