Why is there no provision for transition calender dates?

Question

By Transition I mean Old / new  Calender dates such as 23 Dec 1671 / 2

If it can't be done which should be used?

Comments

Do you speak about Gegorian and Julian calendar? 

Answer 1

When confronted with 23 Dec 1671/2 use 23 Dec 1672 (the later date)

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Date_Fields#Julian_vs._Gregorian_Calendar

Comments

We must hope that people don't use it.  Otherwise they'll put Gregorian on dates that aren't Gregorian and Julian on dates that aren't Julian and we'll have chaos.

Hopefully we don't have any proleptic Gregorian, since nobody else uses it.

We still don't have a name for the dating system universally used by American and British historians, genealogists and reference books, namely, Julian day/month combined with so-called "historical" year.

---

@RJ Horace we should use templates. Using a Wiki not using templates is stoneage....

If you don't have a name/definition then you have a problem....

If people doing genealogy with different calendars and don't understand it then they have to learn it... Genealogy is not easy.... if we ask them to define what calendar they use and can't then we at least understand what they don't understand....

---

Don't know I was clear with my message about parameter 2..... 

As we now can compare Wikidata dates and WikiTree dates for the same person it's important that we use the same calendar otherwise we will compare apples and oranges... or at least understand what calendar the researcher has used to present his/her facts.... otherwise we will have false errors...

Lesson learned is that we have a big difference between dates on Wikipedia and Wikitree and I feel it's not just use of different calendars.... 

---

RJ is right about the hoping people don't try to use it. It seems that genealogists have been ignoring the 'lost days' forever. Most people don't even know they exist. The months are too complicated for some people and I can't imagine if suddenly we decide to change that system. We'll spend way too much time trying to change dates, then change them back after some well meaning person changes them to the standard usage.

---

@Anne B 

What I am saying is use the dates you have but specify the calendar you have used {{Calendar|Proleptic Gregorian calendar|Birth}} so no one has to guess...

==> No "change them back" just explain what calendar you have used

 Guessing is not part of good Genealogy..

---

Sorry Magnus, I misunderstood.

---

The point of the standard convention is that you don't need to know about it.  You can get a long way without knowing there were lost days.  You can safely assume that Christmas was 25 Dec, whenever that was.  You don't even need to know about rollover if you stick to edited sources.

---

Where do we compare WikiTree dates and WikiData dates?

My guess would be that a lot of WikiData dates are wrong because the calendar specified is the wrong one for the date given.

---

Having said which, I see John Adams was born 19 Oct, but we show it as 30 Oct on the Proleptic Washington's Birthday principle.

I think the template should have the date as a parameter.  Otherwise, people will change the date and leave the template and then they won't match.

---

Thinking about it some more, I think if we're going to go crazy we need something we can use inline in a bio, so we can write

Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day {{Date|Gregorian|29 Dec 800}}

and

The Conqueror was crowned on Christmas Day {{Date|Gregorian|31 Dec 1066}}

Then everybody will say "they used to have Christmas on December 29th."

Which of course they didn't.  They had Christmas on the 25th.  They had the 25th on the 29th.

Answer 2

Double-dating only applies between 1 Jan and 24th March.

But there's nothing transitional about it.  AD 1 started on 25th March (the Annunciation) so for all years from 1 to 1751/2 you have to bear in mind that AD dates in original documents are in tax years, except where they were using some other rule.

Fortunately we don't see many original documents, and they tend to use regnal years anyway.

Answer 3

Anne B posted a link to the WikiTree guidance on this. My favorite explanation is Sue Roe's "The Problem of Dates"

Comments

That is a good post. Covers the subject without over complicating it.