Advice before editing this pre-1700 Weekes profile?

Question

I have information to contribute to the profile of Lettice (Weekes) Lidford. This is what I can add:

• Record of her marriage to Matthew Lidford on 6 Jan 1691.  Because the current date of the marriage on her profile is listed as 6 Jan 1692, I propose to change the marriage date to match the date on the record.

These are the sources I am using:

• "Delaware, Church Records, 1707-1939," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLBX-Z7LT : 12 February 2020), Matthew Lidford and Lettice Weekes, 6 Jan 1691; citing Marriage, Christchurch, Middlesex, Virginia, United States, Delaware Bureau of Archives and Records Management, Dover.

Note:  I jumped the gun and made the proposed changes, having forgotten about the pre-1700 advice requirement.  I had read the question about merging two different profiles for Lettice Weekes and was trying to help with the sourcing problem.  If commenters disagree with the addition of the source or editing of the marriage date, I will cheerfully reverse the changes.  My apologies for editing prematurely.

Should I contact one of the pre-1700 projects or know about any style guidelines before proceeding? Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi Lou
The problem is that it is a marriage in January before Britain and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar.  Which means we are not really sure whether the marriage took place on 6 Jan 1690/91 or 6 Jan 1691/92.

Unfortunately because the source is a transcript of marriages organised according to the surname of the groom, we can't see the dates in order, and in any case with transcripts, we often aren't sure whether they have transcribed exactly what is on the original record, or have already made an adjustment to the year, to take into account the fact that the Gregorian calendar isn't yet in use.

Having said that I do think you are correct to change the date to 6 Jan 1691 because that is what is stated in the only source we have so far, but I would add a research note to the biography just to indicate that we can't be sure whether this is 1690/91 or 1691/92.

Comments

Thank you, I added a note about the marriage date.