Jak rozumět kalendářním datům
This post was written by Laurence Harris, Head of Genealogy UK at MyHeritage.
It is important to record key events of our ancestors, including the date when each event occurred.
Usually several sources indicate an event's date. For example, for a death: the date may be indicated on a death certificate, a headstone, a newspaper obituary and in a Grant of Probate (which authorizes distribution of a deceased person's estate). However, those dates would have been documented using the calendar and recording conventions of the geographical location and time when the event originally took place, rather than the calendar and conventions with which today's researcher would be familiar. Failure to take into account the original context of an event or document often results in mistakes in understanding when an event actually happened.
Here are five of the most common mistakes that can occur in interpreting dates, together with suggestions as to how these mistakes can be avoided or corrected.
1. Mixing up American and English date formats
“Elizabeth Green was born on 12.11.1904.” Family historians in the US are likely to interpret this date as December 11, 1904. However those in the UK are likely to interpret this date as 12 November 1904. Only one is correct! The original record and where any subsequent transcription took place will help to determine if this was a December or November birth. Look for nearby transcriptions in the same document to see how other dates are recorded. If you spot another date recorded as 7.13.1925 then the 13 must be a day number (as month number 13 does not exist) so the American convention of mm.dd.yyyy had been used. Therefore, Elizabeth Green was born December 11, 1904. However, if you see another date like 13.7.1925 then you can assume that the first number is the day, and that Elizabeth was born on 13 November 1904.
To avoid confusion when recording dates in your family tree, it is best to use the month written in full or an alphabetic abbreviation such as Nov for November, rather than using a month number, such as 11 for November).
