{"id":61,"date":"2007-04-08T06:38:02","date_gmt":"2007-04-08T13:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/08\/april-8th-is-easter-always-sunday-always-mathematically-calculated-and-always-different\/"},"modified":"2007-04-08T06:38:02","modified_gmt":"2007-04-08T13:38:02","slug":"april-8th-is-easter-always-sunday-always-mathematically-calculated-and-always-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/08\/april-8th-is-easter-always-sunday-always-mathematically-calculated-and-always-different\/","title":{"rendered":"April 8th is Easter: Always Sunday, Always Mathematically Calculated, and Always Different!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Easter!<\/strong> Easter is the most important calendar date that we celebrate. Easter, today calculated by the Gregorian calendar, determines and regulates the ceremonial<\/em> calendar of the Roman Catholic faith and most Protestant churches worldwide. Lent is 46 days prior to Easter, with 40 fasting days. It begins on Ash Wednesday (celebrated by Mardi Gras, preceded by Fat Tuesday) and excludes Sundays and other days of celebration held during that season.<\/p>\n

Christmas is preceded by Advent launching the first<\/em> 25 days of Christmas countdown we all enjoyed as kids. Most of the time Advent falls in the first few days of December–in 2008, however, Advent is 30 November–do the math. The first 25 days of Christmas get a full, additional week. What is a mother to do? Our Advent calendars only have 25 spaces!<\/p>\n

Advent has a more important position in the calendar than just launching the Christmas season for children (and the old shopping season). The Ecclesiastical year begins the 1st Sunday in Advent, or the 4th Sunday before Christmas. This important “New Year’s Day” moves from year to year depending upon the date of Easter!<\/p>\n

The Eastern Christian churches still use the Julian calendar and usually celebrate Easter on a different date than we do in the West. Occasionally both Easters fall on the same date–although they may still differ according to the time zones in which they occur. Christmas Day is also different.<\/p>\n

The Hebrew<\/em> dates for Passover are based on set rules. The Islamic<\/em> calendar uses observation of the moon, stars, and planets. It is a lunar calendar with some adjustments to keep the heavens and the dates in alignment. The Indian<\/em> tabulations for religious holiday observance are published annually with consideration for many local variations<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Chinese<\/em> use an astronomical<\/em> calendar<\/em> based on exact <\/em>positions of the sun and moon. Specific animal designations are given to those years where the alignments are the same.<\/p>\n

The civil calendar<\/em> is a solar year based on revolution of the earth around the sun. The month is based on rotation of the moon around the earth, and the day is based on rotation of the earth on its own axis. Since the motion of the sun and its relation to the earth shifts from year to year, so do the dates of the civil calendar.<\/p>\n

It takes a star 23 hours and 56 minutes to go around from any point in the sky back to the same point. Thus the “siderial day” was 4 minutes shorter than the solar day. The stellar<\/em> year ensured that the winter stars were always different from the summer stars in any given year, and that the star charts must differ from year to to year as well. Before printed calendars were common, ships on the seas and land caravans and wagon trains navigating by the stars, recorded dates that may not match other calculations–especially those written in the family Bible or submitted for military pensions.<\/p>\n

The fiscal<\/em> calendar is not<\/em> a modern device. It was originally based on the government requirement for payment of taxes and tithes (a civil tax levied as an equal rate on 10 families living in the same neighborhood). The actual dates for payment of taxes began as selected church festival<\/em> dates, like Michelmas, used in government courts. Today they vary from government body and agency and within business and corporate books.<\/p>\n

Many festival<\/em> dates come from ancient, pre-Christian, celebrations. The Church desired to shift allegiance of the people from their pagan practices, to worship within the Christian experience. So Saints natal days have become celebration dates and assigned to replace the old pre-Christian rites. Parents were encouraged to name children for the Saint on whose date they were born. Festival calendars and books of Lives of the Saints<\/span> can be found in most church and public libraries. You can also purchase your own guide at any bookstore.<\/p>\n

I have a wonderful photograph of an immigrant family <\/span>in their New York City apartment which has no windows, yet totals 11 calendars<\/span> hanging on the walls! A newly arrived ancestor, coming from Eastern Europe, needed the assurance these printed<\/strong> dates supply. How else could he and his family keep a job, attend church, celebrate birthdays and special festival dates, write in a family Bible, draft a will, sign an agreement or a legal document, show up on time for a marriage or a christening?<\/p>\n

And as record creators and history writers we, too, may need 11 calendars to ensure that what we record is accurate. My colleague, William Thorndale shared a book review by David Starkey, which appeared in the New York Times Literary Supplement<\/span>, 2-8 Dec 1988:<\/p>\n

Peter Padfield, in his Armada<\/span>, is made memorable by a mistake. He lends a hitherto unsuspected dimension of courage in the face of the enemy to Elizabeth I’s Tilbury speech by making it take place on the day of the Battle of Gravelines, and before the Queen knew of the outcome. But alas, it’s all a result of mixing up the New Style calendar, which the Spanish used, with the Old Style employed by the English. New Style was ten days ahead of Old; Tilbury review was ten (safe) days after Gravelines–which, the incautious, can make the events appear to have happened on the same date.<\/p>\n

Watch carefully those guides to historical dates found in so many genealogy publications without any concern for the calendar under which the event or the ancestor took place. It is very easy to make a mistake in dating! Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle<\/p>\n

P.S. Next issue we will look at–probate evidence in wills, admins, inventories, partitions and divisions based on legalties which your ancestors took for granted and which we have to learn. You would be shocked at the level of error the unwary can create! You must know the law.<\/p>\n

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Happy Easter! Easter is the most important calendar date that we celebrate. Easter, today calculated by the Gregorian calendar, determines and regulates the ceremonial calendar of the Roman Catholic faith and most Protestant churches worldwide. Lent is 46 days prior … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}