More Questions to JKR

[Lord Eadric]

No: HPFGUIDX 23452

> -- Could the Wizarding world be on a different calendar than Muggles?
>        (Could help reconcile some of the timeline problems.)

Several months ago, someone sent this message to a genealogy mailing list.
According to the Lexicon, the world of wizards was completely separated from
the muggle world with the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of 1692. Just keep
this in mind when reading the following.

The calendar was changed in 1752. In that year Britain swapped over from the
Julian calendar - introduced in the time of Julius Caesar and which we had
had for many centuries - to the Gregorian calendar, introduced into most of
Europe in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Until then, the New Year had always started in Britain on Lady Day, March
25th, as you say. At the time of the changeover Britain, because of the
inaccurate calendar, had fallen 11 days behind the rest of Europe, so in
1752 11 days were removed altogether in order to bring the country into
line., In that year, September 2nd was followed by September 14th. It is
said there were riots in the streets of London and other cities because the
ordinary people believed the government was stealing 11 days from their
lives!

This event is very important to us as family historians, since it is easy to
get the year wrong when writing dates between January 1 and March 24 before
1752. I came up against this a while ago when I found the marriages of two
sets of my 5-times gt-grandparents in Kirkby Malham in the Yorkshire Dales.
One couple were married on December 25 1747 and the other couple on March 13
1747. However, when looking at the film of the parish registers I realized
from the order in which the marriages had been entered that the second
marriage on March 13, was AFTER the December one, thus the date has to be
written thus: March 13 1747/8. This is the style you should adopt when
entering any event between January 1 and March 24 inclusive, prior to 1752.
Before 1752 dates are called Old Style and after 1752 New Style. Do remember
this, you newcomers to genealogy, when researching in pre-1752 documents
such as registers and Bishops' Transcripts, etc., and to take account of it.
A date of, say, February 21st 1644 in England and Wales (but not Scotland,
see below), is actually February 21st 1645 in modern terms. This can be very
significant if you start looking at how soon after a marriage a first child
is born!!!

You will find that some family tree programs enter pre-1752 dates in Old
Style automatically.

There is a curious survival to this day of this quirk in our calendar
system, which is the fact that we start the financial year on April 5th.
This is because the merchants, bankers and money lenders of the City of
London always refused to accept the new calendar because they thought it
meant they were losing three months' interest on their money They insisted
that as far as they were concerned the year still began on Lady Day, March
25th, and what was more they were having their 11 days back as well. So they
added the 11 days to March 25th and arrived at April 5th as the start of the
financial year. Not a lot of people know this!

Of course, you also see traces of the old calendar in the Latin names of the
months of September (the 7th month), October (the eighth), November (the
ninth) and December (the tenth). Those of you with Quaker ancestors will
know that they didn't name the months but always called them "the First
Month" and so on. Therefore, prior to 1752 "the First Month" in Quaker
records means March and after 1752 it became "the Third Month".

Another thing you have to watch out for is that if you are tracing Scottish
ancestry Scotland actually changed to having January as the start of the
year on January 1st 1600. Therefore, a date of February 21st 1644 in
Scottish records means exactly as it would today. However, the change to the
Gregorian calendar did not take place in Scotland until 1752, at the same
time as England and Wales changed.

So, it's possible (but not too likely) that the wizarding world has a
different calendar than the muggle world.

Hope this helps!
Phillip Riley
a.k.a. Lord Eadric
Webmaster, Oriental Adventures Project
http://come.to/kara-tur
Webmaster, The Wandering Bard's tavern
http://come.to/eadric

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish." -Euripides

"When in doubt, listen to the man with the bloodier weapon." - Unknown

"Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with
ketchup." - Unknown