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Archiver > TMG > 2002-09 > 1030980380


From: "Richard Damon" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Old Style date entry
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 11:26:20 -0400
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20020901235557.01a63f68@mail.attbi.com>


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Laura M. Cooper [mailto:]
> Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 1:27 AM
> To:
> Subject: [TMG] Old Style date entry
>
>
> Is there a reason why when entering an Old Style date, say 18 Mar 1653os,
> TMG converts the date to 18 Mar 1652/53 rather than the correct date, 18
> Mar 1653/54? In the scheme of things, this is a minor issue since
> OS dates
> can be entered manually, but I was really hoping it would be corrected in
> v5, or that the feature would be discontinued to prevent innocent
> mistakes.
>
> Laura Cooper,
> Arlington, Texas
>

I agree it is a bug (or at least a misfeature). Non-Gregorian date handling
is one of the few weaknesses in TMG. TMG only handles 2 types of dates.
Normal Gregorian and split year dates. (Try June 15, 1650 OS). Part of the
issue is that there are really 3 calendars here.

Original Julian, with the year running from March 25 to March 24.
A revised Julian, with the year running from January 1 to December 31.
Gregorian, with the year running from January 1 to December 31.

(There are other variation of Julian start dates also but less common).
A place might actually use different versions of the Julian at the same
time. This is why they adopted the split year dating as 18 Mar 1653/54 was
actually in 2 different years depending on the colander used. 18 Mar 1653 OS
was probably on the 25 Mar - 24 Mar colander so 53/54 is probably correct.
If it was on the Jan - Dec calendar it would not have been marked OS in the
original, but may have in someone's work as a way to say Julian.

In some modern histories dates before the shift of colander may adopt the
double year dating to explain a birth July 810 followed by a death in Feb
810 (giving the death as Feb 810/11). I would like TMG to have a way to
indicate if a date is Julian or Gregorian (or unknown) without using double
years (which is only really appropriate for 3 months of the year). Double
Year dating would only need to be available for Julian dates (but not forced
for all). While improving this it would be nice if they also looked into
being able to express other calendars (like the Jewish or Muslim) and dates
BC.

Richard Damon
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