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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Frank75 on Monday 13 June 11 14:19 BST (UK)
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I have been perusing the Parish marriage records for Beckingham Lincolnshire during 1586/7 on Linctothepast and have been unable to understand the way that numbers in dates have been written. I can work out that the document says for example "this ??th day of January", but I can't fathom what the actual date is. It seems to be some form of numbering which could be latin but I don't know for sure.
Does anyone have a pointer as to where I can find out how to interpret the dates?
Thanks
Frank
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Have a look at this page:
http://www.freereg.org.uk/howto/readnumbers.htm
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Thanks. Have looked at the link and it is useful for latin. However the register I have been referring to uses a weird form of numbering and I don't think it is latin. The writer also uses regnal years which adds to the confusion because the numbers are written in the same fashion. It may be an unusual way of writing the numbers in latin. However the day I am looking at the number is written with a backward looking g with a long looping tail and what looks like a b leaning backwards.
I don't know if this helps. Have a look at the record I am referring to: Marriage of Thomas Trueblood and Elizabeth Parker
http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/RecordDisplayTranscript.aspx?oid=555335&iid=45621
You can increase the size of the image by zooming in on your browser ctrl + or -
Frank
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Sorry! I can't make out any words at all!
Somebody has endorsed "Lincs to the past" all over the document image. ;D ;D
The letter/marks you are referring to could be j?
That page I linked to explains that j is often used instead of i in Roman numerals?
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Could it be xvth which would be the 15th? x was often written that way, with a loopy tail. Not too sure about the v though.
Have a look at this link: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/latin.aspx
Edit: I can't quite make out the previous marriage because the entry seems different from the others, with some sort of bracketing towards the end, but the date looks like xxix (29th?) of something, but the marriage after yours looks like xij th (12th?) February so at least it would fit chronologically.
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There are a number of dates of the form anno reginae xxjx, xxx, xxxj, xxxij which translate as year of the queen (may be reign) 29, 30, 31 and 32. This was the normal way of writing years.
David
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The 'backward looking g' is a way of writing x. The 'backward leaning b' is a way of writing v. You will easily be able to identify i, but at the end of a number the i is ofter lengthened to j. xvij = 17.
When you see Anno = in the year, then the number in Latin is not ten, but tenth, not two, but second - in the second year...... The Latin for first, second, eighth, twenty third etc. ends in o - e.g. anno tertio = in the third year. This is written iii or iij with a small superscript o at the end.
Graham
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Wow. I am knocked out by the response. Thanks everybody. It seems that the date is 15th January. Now the next question is. 1586 or 1587. From what you have said then it looks like it would be the 29th year of the reigning monarch?
Frank
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Elizabeth 1 reigned from 1558 so her 29th year would be 1587. What does everybody think?
Frank
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1586 or 1587? Both!! ;D Either?! ;D
The year began on March 25th!
Did you read the section on 1752 Calender changes in the web-page I senbefore?
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A regnal year does not coincide with the calendar year. It depends on the date the monarch came to the throne. The first year of the reign of Elizabeth I started when Queen Mary died on 17th November 1558. The 10th November 1559 is still in the first year of her reign.
Graham.
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In my reckoning then the 29th year of Elizabeth 1 reign was 17 Nov 1586 to 16 Nov 1587 so the year of the marriage must be 1587.
Frank
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1586 or 1587? Both!! ;D Either?! ;D
The year began on March 25th!
Did you read the section on 1752 Calender changes in the web-page I senbefore?
The reason why the Tax Year still begins in the first week of April.
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In my reckoning then the 29th year of Elizabeth 1 reign was 17 Nov 1586 to 16 Nov 1587 so the year of the marriage must be 1587.
Frank
But the 12th of February would have been in 1586 because the the year 1587 didn't start until late March.
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According to the freereg link the correct way of describing dates between January and March up until 1752 is, as in my case, 15 January 1586/7. If we count back from now, year on year, it would be 1587 but because the year used to start at the end of March in Elizabethan times the year would still have been 1586.
On another note being a bit of an amateur calligrapher I have fathomed out how the x's and v's came to be written as they were. Quill pens as well as most calligraphic nibs are squared off so in order to get ink on the page you have to draw the nib towards you. We generally write an x from top left to bottom right and then top right to bottom left. This would have been no different then so the letter would have been constructed with 2 strokes. The first would be curved to the left and the second meeting up with the end of the first stroke and swirling in the exaggerated tail serif which gives the impression of a reverse g.
The v is constructed of 2 strokes as well. The first being longer than the second and again curved to the left. The second stroke shorter but curved to the right. When written quickly it could easily look like a backward leaning b. Clear as Mud :-\
Frank
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I understood the years, but your description of the reason x's and y's were written in a strange (to us) way was very enlightening.
Lizzie