Gathering accurate dates of significant family events is an important element of good genealogy research. Here are the genealogical standards of date recording:
1.Use the European standard when recording dates, where date comes first, followed by the month (spelled out) and the four-digit year. Example: 21 January, 1933. This is quite different from the usual way Americans write down dates. Do not write the date in figures as in 5/3/04 or 5-3-04. Readers (you included) can interpret it as May 3 or March 5, 1804, 1904 or 2004.
2.Genealogists usually spell out the months but accepted abbreviations can also be used:
Jan. for January
Feb. for February
Mar. for March
Apr. for April
Aug. for August
Sept. for September
Oct. for October
Nov. for November
Dec. for December
May, July and July are usually not abbreviated
3.If you are recording an approximate date, you can use ca. or c. for “circa” or abt. for “about” to indicate that the date is not the exact. Ex.: ca. 1900 or abt. January 1945.
4.If a particular event happened before or after a particular date, you may use the abbreviations bef. or aft. preceding the date. Ex.: bef. 4 May, 1988.
5.There may be instances wherein you cannot pinpoint the exact date an event occurred. If this is the case, record the date using the abbreviation bet. followed by the dates, separated by a hyphen, to narrow it down to a specific period. (It makes logical sense that your ancestors got married between the application for a marriage license and the birth date of their first child). Ex.: bet. 23 September, 1892 3 December, 1893.
6.In the case of finding a date which has several interpretations, write down the date exactly as it was written followed by your interpretation written in the standard date format, enclosed in square brackets. Ex.: 12/3/88 [12 December, 1888]
Take note of the dates if your research takes you beyond the time when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII replaced the Julian calendar in 1582 but many countries didn’t follow the order to use the new calendar immediately. Many protestant countries adopted the Gregorian calendar much later than 1592. Great Britain and the British colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar almost 200 years later, in 1752. China and some other countries followed the “new style” calendar just recently. It is important, therefore to understand when the new calendar took effect in the country you are researching on.
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