Ancestor Charts – Getting Slashes & Dashes Right

Best Genealogists Know Difference: Double Dating vs Not Knowing

Aug 25, 2009

Some genealogists report an ancestor was born in 1730/31. Others say an ancestor was born 1730-31. What is the difference?

There is a very significant difference between using a slash and a dash. If a family researcher arbitrarily uses a slash or a dash—without knowing the difference—experienced family researchers and professional genealogists, who know the difference, will become very confused in trying to deal with, or help, a newbie to the genealogy scene.

Dating Genealogical References: The Dash

The dash means we don’t know if ancestor Matilda Makepeace (1730-31) was born in 1730 or 1731. We just feel, perhaps from some evidence, that this was the time frame of her birth. Some folks would call this “an educated guess.” However, some family researchers give a birth, marriage or death date with as much as a 20-year span, i.e., she was born 1710-1730. This is not a very educated guess!

Dating Genealogical Records: The Slash

Prudence Partridge was born 18 January 1734/5. This example is a very authentic form of double dating. It arises from a very real set of circumstances. This is a time-line problem related to changing calendars. Between the years 1582 and 1752 the people in England and America were not sure if the New Year commenced on January 1 or March 25.

The answer to this quandary is that it depended upon which calendar you believed in and used for practical reasons. The new Gregorian Calendar year began January 1. The old Julian Calendar year started March 25.

Calendar Complications Faced by Genealogists

It gets more complicated. The double dating—as in Philip Carpenter (1743/4)—is only necessary from January 1 to March 24 of each year. (If you see a slashed date which falls outside the perimeter of those dates, you are dealing with someone who does not understand the difference.) Emphasis: No double dating was needed between March 25 and Dec. 31. The year was then the same on both calendars.

Because some churches did not recognize the Gregorian calendar, care must be used in figuring dates of baptism, marriages and deaths for this period. Public vital statistics records would be using the Gregorian calendar, but churches may have still been using the Julian calendar.

Correct Record Dating Is Important

For several decades—and especially since computerized genealogy made its debut—genealogists have unknowingly made slash versus dash errors. This has made the problem mushroom. Published data has used them erroneously because editors were not aware of the author’s intent or knowledge.

This is a plea to genealogists to be aware of the slash versus dash differences. Doing so would be a great service to genealogy in our era.

The copyright of the article Ancestor Charts – Getting Slashes & Dashes Right in Genealogy is owned by Rosemary E. Bachelor. Permission to republish Ancestor Charts – Getting Slashes & Dashes Right in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.