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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: tillypeg on Friday 01 February 19 13:40 GMT (UK)
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Looking at the second entry of the three shown here, can you decipher the date, please. I am only interested in Sarah Stonehouse, just included the others for comparison.
Then was Sarah the daughter of John Stonehouse and Eling his wife Boarne in moorsom.
The place will be Moorsholm.
Find My Past have transcribed the date as 31 January 1709.
No 1 is Abram Snowdon 14 Jan
No 3 is Jane Floor 11 Feb
Many thanks.
Tillypeg
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31st of the 11th month. In Scotland New Year's Day had been 1st January since 1600. In England at this period New Year's Day was still 25th March. If the clerk took March as the 1st month, then the 11th month would be January.
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Thanks very much for your explanation GR2, that's helped me and is useful to know.
Tillypeg
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As the year commenced on March 25th as GR2 states, the year would have been 1710 in modern reckoning. It is (and was) expressed 1709/10; you can see this clearly in the entry below,
Steve
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For reference see https://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library/quaker-calendar
Ray
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Thanks to you all, the Quaker calendar is interesting. I will save the link to my favourites for future use.
It was the ii bit that threw me, I was aware of expressing the date as 1709/10 as I've come across that several times. However, the link to the calendar states they would use Roman numerals i - xii, so why, if it was January (the 11th month), didn't the clerk write xi?