In the event that your dates are roughly estimated you will need to show that the date is imprecise by using “about” or “circa” followed by the year i.e. c. 1871 or abt. 1871. If you are sure an event took place before or subsequent to a certain date you could record the event with bef. or aft. followed by the date i.e. bef. 22 December, 1884 or aft. 22 December, 1884.

If you don’t know exactly when an event took place, then you can use an estimated range, if you have a good idea of about the time of the event. When the entry is recorded in your family history you would use the abbreviation bet. for “between” with the appropriate dates after it i.e. 10 September, 1932 – 21 February, 1954. If you come across a date that may be construed in more than one way then you should record it as it was originally documented i.e. 08/04/04 followed by [8 April, 1804].

Double Dating

The first calendar ever used was the Julian Calendar, which was a calendar based on solar cycles, and first presented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC Rome. This calendar consisted of 12 months, 365 days and a leap year of 366 days every four years. The Gregorian Calendar, which is used today was presented in 1582 by POPE GREGORY XIII to amend an 11-day discrepancy in the Julian Calendar by turning October 5 into October 15 on condition that only 100-year periods capable of being divided by 400 are, designated leap years. Not every country embraced this new format at the same time, however. 

British North America and England didn’t convert to the Gregorian format until the early 1750s and up until that time March 25^th was designated the first day of the year rather than January 1^st.  Many people doubled their dates as a result i.e. January 1, 1718/19, which signified both the Julian (1718), and Gregorian (1719) formats. Amazingly, the People’s Republic of China didn’t convert to the Gregorian format until almost 1950.  With this information in mind, you should record dates just the way you find them and then use chronicled documents to establish which date is most appropriate. Following each date add the double date in brackets.

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