Peter Haughton wrote:
Sounds Good Dave, BUT when the Julian Calendar was
established, the start of the year was 1 January and all
those months that are (and were) based on the Latin
name for the number were two out, as they had been for
several centuries before that.
The fact that the Latin prefix names agree with your
early parish records month numbering is coincidence,
but I accept what you are saying about the month
numbering.
Forget Julian and Gregorian for now. Think about the English Legal and
Ecclesiastical years. These started on March 25th each year and ran
through to March 24th. This is the reason why we use double dating for
dates in the range January 1st to March 24th for the years prior to 1752.
To the vast majority of people then in what eventually became the
British Empire (and that include the American Colonies), the year
started and ended in March. Thus, when numbering the months of the year,
March was 1, April 2 and so on. That made September 7, October 8,
November 9 and December 10. Perfectly logical at the time bearing in
mind the linguistic origin of the month names.
If you spend any time reading through or transcribing old English parish
registers, it is inevitable that in the 17th century and before, you
will come across months written in Roman numerals using the, for want of
a better phrase, "Old Style" month numbers above.
I find that the following web site has a very good general write up
about calendars, as well as providing a very useful, free program.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~jk.calisto/calisto/
--
Regards,
Mike Fry
Johannesburg.
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