Did you know that Paul Revere has two birthdays; in two different years? I was recently reading an article about this in the Ancestry.com electronic newsletter. They pointed out that even the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) have accepted both dates. Knowing that the DAR has very strict requirements of proof for descendancy, I was surprised that they accepted two different dates for Paul Revere and his contemporaries.
The reason for the two dates is that the accepted calendar used in America changed during Paul’s lifetime.
During his reign as pope, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned a new calendar because the spring equinox had been moving ahead year by year. His new calendar, proposed in 1582, added 10 days to the old Julian calendar. Britain did not accept this calendar until September 3rd, 1752! Because we were a British colony at the time, all our dates were changed then, too. This meant that people went to bed on the 3rd, but woke up, not on September 4th, but on September 15th. (It’s like Leap Year, the next day is still the next day, but we call it a different date than we would have in any other year.)
Before I read this article, I hadn’t thought about the effects of calendar changes on individuals, Even though I had run into the problem in my own family, I was uncertain which dates to accept.
I suspect that for many years, people clung to the birth, death, and marriage dates they had used all their lives under the Julian Calendar. But as time passed, historians used the new calendar dates for earlier events, so the date recorded for events in the past aligned with the “new” Gregorian calendar.
Events before 1752 would have originally been recorded with the Julian dates in use at the time, such as Paul Revere’s birth in December 21st, 1734. Later historians using the new Gregorian calendar recorded the date as January1st, 1735! Because December 21st was the right date at the time, it has to be accepted, even though, under the current calendar the date would be January 1st, so this date must also be accepted.
I know there are many people who would be happy to wake up a year younger, but I can just imagine the confusion it must have caused among those who lived through such a monumental change. I have experienced for myself the confusion it continues to cause for those of us researching the past.
I respect any organization which holds its members to high standards. Knowing that the DAR, with their stringent requirements, accepts both dates certainly eases my concern for getting it “right.” I guess the best news to get from all this confusion is to know that either date is considered correct. This relieves us from having to understand the cause of the issue well enough to be able to justify choosing one date over the other.
Anything that makes it easier, yet keeps it correct, is all right with me!
Editor’s note: Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft, who has been doing genealogy for over 30 years, is a freelance genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader e-mails are welcome at ninabrawn@gmail.com. The Aroostook County Genealogical Society meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at the Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center, 163 Van Buren Road, Caribou, at 6:30 p.m. Guests and prospective members are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.
