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Just for the fun of it ...
http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/%7Eyugo/storage/
monocrafts_ver3/03/index.html
For Books on this subject, search my link to Amazon.com by
clicking here > Jewish Genealogy
Birthdates as related to Jewish genealogy ... "Our ancestors at the beginning of the 20th century did not know when they were born in most cases. If they had any birth date at all, it was on the Hebrew calendar - and nobody transposed that into the Gregorian. So people guessed. If they were near the 'old age' limit on the draft, they might say old enough to be exempt. If they were young and patriotic, they might say they were old enough to join up; or if they didn't want to go, they were younger.
Social security was the same way. Those without birth records (most immigrants and many born in states without civil registration when they were born) were somewhat free to make up a birth date. If old and poor, they might make themselves old enough to collect retirement. Census records were checked to see what was said to the clerk.
But in most cases both were just an estimate. And I wouldn't 'trust' anything but a primary source, a birth record. Other records are 'approximate'." From a posting by Sally Bruckheimer sallybru@wdcunet.net
The following site is accurate and quite interesting. Type in your birthday, or anyone else and you'll find a great deal of information http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp --------------------- At 3:40 AM -0700 9/21/06, Celia Male wrote:
"After saying that the birth records in the Habsburg Empire were very good and went back eons, I asked rhetorically: < Can we therefore conclude that in the Habsburg Empire, birthdates [constantly demanded and required for form-filling] played a much more important role than in Russia, Poland or Lithuania? I am sure German Jews also knew their birth dates.
No one has really answered this rhetorical question and I would not dare to offer my opinion in an area I do not know about."
"I don't know anything in detail about that either, but I am pretty
sure that West European Jews in the 19th century were far more aware of the secular date than was the case in Eastern Europe.
This conclusion is based on the general observation that beginning
shortly after 1800, the European Enlightenment led to Jewish
emancipation in various west European countries at various dates. At that point Jews could for the first time go to regular schools with gentiles, learn the language of the country properly, and generally interact more with the surrounding population. No doubt that was when knowing the secular date of one's birth or any other event became a practical possibility for most Jews.
But the Enlightenment never took widespread root in Eastern Europe
until the early 20th century (and even then to a far lesser extent
than in the West) -- which surely accounts for a great deal, from
the persistence of a higher level of illiteracy and superstition
among East European Jews to the anti-Semitism that kept Jews
residing mostly in their own Yiddish-speaking enclaves and therefore
no doubt contributed to their imperfect knowledge of or interest in
the secular date." From a posting by Celia Male and Judith Romney Wegner jrw@brown.edu
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Calendars 
| With the original (Monarchical then Republican) system and the modified Julian (Imperial) calendar system, the Romans began their year with the month called Januarius (January) named for Janus, the doorkeeper in Roman mythology, a god-figure who looks both ways: into the old and on to the new, appropriate at the new year. Later, Christians changed the Calendar established by the Romans (the old, Julian Calendar, still in use for certain calculations) so that the year began in late March - the old feast day. The Romans numbered years "ab urbe condita" from the date when Rome was founded. After his conquest of Egypt, Julius Caesar introduced the solar year with an extra day every fourth year, based on a Babylonian model. At 527 A.D. a Roman Abbot Dionysius Exiguous numbered the new years as Anno Domini, starting the numbering of years from the birth of Jesus. However, every 131 years the calendar would be off by one day since the distance the earth traveled around the sun grew shorter ... from 365.2422 to 365.2419 days. Pope Gregory XIII commissioned Christopher Clavius, a friend of Galileo, to reform the calendar. He did so using mathematics and astronomy to calculate the new calendar year. His Gregorian reform of the Julian calendar was not accepted by the Orthodox Church which saw it as a Roman intrusion (which it was), and Protestant countries were reluctant as well. England did not adopt the modern calendar until 1751, while Orthodox Russia was forced to adopt the new changes after the Bolsheviks took over in 1917. On February 14, 1918, the Soviet Government proclaimed the new calendar, i.e. it decided to accept the Gregorian one and adjust the dates. Since that time, there were two systems of dates in the Soviet Union, one of them called "New Style" and the other "Old Style". The New Style is simply the standard Gregorian calendar. The Old Style lags behind by 13 days. It is always used to calculate the dates of any Church events and holidays. |
For example until 1752 in England, this was New Year's day, making March the first month of the year (though a short one!) and September, October, November and December conform to the original meanings of their names as the seventh, eight, ninth and tenth months of the year. In Roman Catholic Europe, the switch to the Gregorian calendar (which took place in officially Anglican England and colonies in 1752 and which the reason is why one sometimes sees dates expressed as O. S. (for Old Style, i.e. Julian) and N. S. (for New Style, i.e. Gregorian), named after the reforming pope who authorized its use, was adopted quite a lot earlier, beginning in the late 16th century. For information on when various places switched calendars
http://www.norbyhus.dk/calendar.html " Michael Bernet offers: This was about the time that most European nations adjusted the Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian calendar, which also required adjusting dates by about 11 days. In France an entirely new calendar was created. Either of these could explain the why of the date of the week."
"Michael is correct to raise the consideration of the shift from Julian to Gregorian calendar, which occurred at different times in different countries. Catholic nations generally changed in 1582, while many Protestant nations did not change until as late as 1752 (e.g. British Empire) and eastern Orthodox nations mostly changed in the early 20th century. This is important when trying to figure out "what day of the week was Jan 1, 1700" (answer is, it depends which country)."
"However, France changed their calendar in 1582, so by the date in question in 1811, France had been on the Gregorian calendar for over a couple centuries, and 24 Dec 1811 was indeed a Tuesday as has been pointed out."
"Michael is also correct in noting that France had an entirely unique calendar system for a brief period, a by-product of Revolutionary exuberance. However, the Republican calendar was only in effect from 1793 to 1806. Also, it was a complete overhaul of the traditional calendar, with the new year starting on the fall equinox, 12 months of exactly 30 days each (with completely new month names), and the traditional 7-day week abolished in favor of a 10-day week called a "decade". (Since 12 30-day months only makes 360 days, they had a handful of festival days at the end of each year that didn't belong to any month.)"
"Had France still been on the Republican calendar on the date in question (24 Dec 1811), I estimate that it would have fallen on the second day ("Duodi") of the first 10-day "decade" in the fourth month ("Nivo^se") of the year 18. In other words, there would be no confusion should you come across a Republican date in France, because it would look completely unlike a Julian or Gregorian date." From a posting by Tom Chatt on 6/5/05 David Kravitz wrote: Pope Gregory introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582 and there was rioting in the streets, The difference between the calendars was only 11 minutes and 16 seconds a year but had built up to 11 days over the centuries.
England (and the American colonies) changed calendars in 1752, and
Wednesday, September 2, 1752 was immediately followed by Thursday,
September 14, 1752. This anger resulted in widespread riots and with the
populace demanding "Give us the eleven days back!"
The accepted Jewish practice is to use the abbreviation CE which stands for Common Era or Christian Era. Years prior to the Common Era are referred to as BCE - Before the Common Era or Before the Christian Era. In predominantly Orthodox areas of Central and Eastern Europe, at least where the Orthodox Church held sway as the State Church under the 'ancient regime', at a secular level, the switchover to or the adoption of the new (Gregorian) calendar from the old (Julian) took place generally after the latter part of WW I and its tumultuous aftermath. The Orthodox Churches retained the old calendar much longer, and, perhaps still do in some of their many groupings as they do not always agree on matters affecting the calculation of movable feast days, etc. (such as Easter). "The Julian calendar was used all over Europe and in the US. It was the Christian calendar for everyone of that faith until Pope Gregory proposed the reforms which carry his name. The important point is that different countries adopted the 'reformed' calendar at different times, and the various Orthodox churches still follow the older version, leading to the 13 days later celebration of the Orthodox Christmas, etc. which you hear about in the U.S. The calendar changed in Western Europe, especially Catholic countries, in the 18th century. Eastern Europe was much later." From a posting by Sally Bruckheimer on 4/1/2000 on JewishGen Although the Hebrew calendar includes a 19 years cycle, it is not true to say that the correspondence with the civil calendar will repeat exactly every 19 years (although it is only likely to be out by a few days). There are two reasons for this: first, the civil calendar itself is not regular (it will only repeat exactly every 2,800 years); and secondly, a number of extra adjustments need to be made to the Hebrew calendar (adding or subtracting a day every few yeas, according to prescribed rules), principally to ensure that certain festivals don't occur on inconvenient days of the week And although the Julian calendar had been used in old Russia, there were no set standards and on many documents you may see the date shown by using both calendars; the Gregorian date shown in parentheses after the Julian date. In the 19th century the difference between Julian and Gregorian Calendars was 12 days and the the 20th century it was 13 days.
Calendar Magic - a free download is available which offers many types of calendars, Reminders by Month, Quick Notes, Gregorian Analysis, Alarm Clock and so much more and did I mention it is a FREE download?
http://www.snapfiles.com/download/dlcalendarmagic.html
The Hebrew Calendar in use today is calculated from 3,760 BCE, and is a combination of lunar and solar calendars. The week consists of seven days beginning with the Sabbath. the year consists of 12 lunar months - Tishri, Heshvan, Kislav, Tebet, Shebat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Ab, and Elul - which are alternatively 29 and 30 days long. Because a year is some 11 days longer than 12 lunar months, a 13th month (an extra or embolismic month), ve-Adar, is added seven times during every 19 year cycle. At the same time Adar is given 30 days instead of 29 |
Hebrew Calendar in Hebrew
http://tzura.co.il/thesite/hebrew_calendar.asp?month=9&year=2005 If you are into Calendars, I found an interesting site at The Catholic Encyclopedia site
http://www.newadvent.org/
once there select the first hyperlink on your left "Catholic Encyclopedia"; then on the next page select the letter representing the day of the week you are interested in learning more about i.e. Sunday from the list you are presented and you will find, (among many subjects relating to the catholic religion), detailed information about the naming of each day of the week. An online Day of the Week Calendar
http://www.travelfurther.net/dates/datesrus.asp Also for additional resources, try
http://www.cyndislist.com
10,000 year calendar on the Internet -
http://www.calendarhome.com/tyc/
50 Year Yahrzeit Calendar - Given a calendar day as input, this program calculates a 50-year Yahrzeit calendar suitable for printing on a single page. The calendar lists dates between now and Rosh Hashanah 5811 (September 2050)
http://shamash.org/trb/yahr/
Calendar Conversion Web Page: allows the conversion of dates between various calendar systems. Calendar conversions available include: Julian; Day of Week; Gregorian: Jewish .
http://www.genealogy.org/~scottlee/calconvert.cgi
Calendar Conversions - between Hebrew and Gregorian dates http://www.jewishgen.org/jos/josdates.htm
Calendar of Holiday Explanations - an explanation of what each Jewish holiday is all about
http://www.jewishminnesota.org/ Click on "Jewish Holidays Calendar"
"The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar" - authored by Arthur Spier and published in 1986 by Feldheim Publishers gives both the lunar and solar calendar dates in an easy side-by-side format.
Convert any calendar to any other calendar: http://emr.cs.uiuc.edu/home/reingold/calendar-book/ See also:
http://www.timeanddate.com
for all types of time and date information http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/ http://www.projectpluto.com/calendar.htm
Convert the Julian to the Gregorian Calendars and vice versa:
http://pdc.ro.nu/mjd.cgi
Hebrew Calendar for Windows is a commercial program with many unusual features and offered by Joe Kohn at calendar-maven@bigfoot.com A Download the latest version now available at
http://www.calendar-maven.com/ http://www.mavensearch.com/content/jewishcalendar.htm
Jewish Calendar - converts dates between Gregorian, Hebrew and a few other formats
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/ History and Info on the Jewish Calendar - requires a search
www.webexhibits.com
Jewish Holidays
http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/
"Litvaks and Their Calendars ~ Or How to Navigate Between the Torah Portion, and the Hebrew, Gregorian and Julian Calendars" - authored by Jacob Bleadon. For information about different calendars, plus advice on programs and URLs to use to work with converting and inter-calculating dates between calendars, read this article
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/litvakcal.htm
"Millennia Calendar Lite" - calculates dates in 6 different calendar systems and the download is free. If you need to calculate dates in different calendar systems, this freebie can help.
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64984/description.html?tk=nl_wbxdwn
Religious Calendars - here you will find various twists on calendars, including Favorite bible verses, Ancient Latvian Calendar and Festivals, Calendar Maven (Hebrew Calendar software), HaYom Hebrew Calendar, Jewish Calendar, Kaluach (Civil Calendar)
http://www.calendarzone.com/Religious/
www.Calendarexpress.com
Time Zone - offers the time differentials between cities or between specific days of week - free download program
http://www.brothersoft.com/home_education/calendars/time_travel_47670.html
Yah47670.htmlrzeit Calendar Calculator - 50 years by Andrew Tannenbaum yahr@shamash.org given a calendar day as input, this program calculates a 50-year Yahrzeit calendar suitable for printing on a single page. The calendar lists dates between now and Rosh Hashanah 5811 (September 2050)
http://shamash.org/trb/yahr
Currency Converter 164 currencies worldwide can be converted to the current value.
http://www.oanda.com/cgi-bin/ncc Comparative Values - various tools for translating historical dollar amount into current ones
www.eh.net FXHist ory® Historical Currency Exchange Rates
The easiest tool to access the largest foreign exchange database on the Internet
http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory Thomas Cook Conversion site -
http://www.thomascook.com/cgi-bin/xchg011_calculator.pl http://www.xe.net/ucc/ http://www.xe.net/currency/ http://www.rubicon.com/passport/currency/ccfram.htm
The latter is a Universal Currency Converter™ that converts rates as of 9/29/1999 and is updated once per minute in both Canadian and US Dollars. Also many other countries money can be converted including French, British, German, Japanese and Malaysian and more. Here is a download site where you can obtain free Currency X
http://www.tucows.com/preview/34745
Currency Converter - Freeware (a no cost computer program). http://www.belgraver.demon.nl/currconv/
Oanda - here is a site that will convert the current rate from one currency into another. It also offers a 'History' button and a 'Travelers' link http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic
The World Exchange Calculator - this is an easy to use desktop application that uses the Internet to access daily currency exchange rates for over 240 countries from a server. It is shareware
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/
Once you are at the web site, type in the Search for box The World Exchange Calculator. You can then download the file to your computer.
xe.com - The Universal Currency Converter™ - allows you to perform interactive foreign exchange rate calculations on the Internet, using live, up-to-the-minute currency rates
http://www.xe.com/ucc/
Distance Calculator Latitude/Longitude Distance Calculator
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cvm/latlongdist.html To use this calculator, here are the valid formats to enter latitude and longitude data: Option 1: dddmmssD or ddd mm'sss" D Example: 351153N 1113902W or 35 11'53" N 111 39'02" W where ddd = 1-3 digits for degrees; mm = 2 digits for minutes; ss = 2 digits for seconds and D = N, S, E, or West. The seconds and special characters (spaces, apostrophes, quotes) are all optional in this format. Option 2: ddd.ffffD Example: 35.1234N 111.4321W where ddd = 0-3 digits; ffff = 0-10 digits and D = N, S, E or West. This format represents a decimal number of degrees. If the number of degrees is a whole number, the decimal point is optional. Option 3: ddd mm.ffffD Example: 35 11.98'N 111 39.34'W where ddd = 0-3 digits for degrees; mm = 2 digits for minutes; ffff = 0-10 digits for decimal portion of minutes and D = N, S, E, or West. This format represents degrees and a decimal number of minutes There are three facts to take into consideration when working out locations: 1. The Earth is round and has a circumference, at the equator, of 25,000 miles (close enough); 2. a circle has 360 degrees; and 3. in one degree there are 60 minutes. If you divide 25,000 by 360 you get slightly less than 69 1/2 miles per degree of latitude. Divide that by 60 and you get one minute of latitude equaling about 1.16 statue miles. The same applies to degrees and minutes of longitude at the equator, but like a lemon wedge, a wedge of longitude gets narrower as you leave the equator. You may need some tables to look at - or a knowledge of trigonometry. This site I found to be perfect for dummies like me - http://www.wcrl.ars.usda.gov/cec/java/lat-long.htm
Time and 
Date Converter Date Converter
http://www.israelvisit.co.il/Calendar/index.html
Daylight Savings in both the US and Europe
http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html Time Zone Converter
www.timezoneconverter.com
ask "What time is it in ..." and offers a pull-down menu of cities around the world. Time Ticker - displays the time for any country --- from Congo to Canada, Malawi to Madagascar -- as well as for a country's major city or cities.
www.timeticker.com Time Zone in the US - select any part of the US for exact time
http://www.time.gov/ Have fun with this one ...
http://www.solinas.com/clock.html
http://www.solinas.com/clock.html World Clock - very interesting
http://www.chippynews.com/worldclock.htm
Please let me know if there is a favorite link of yours that is not included in my site and I will be happy to add it to Jewish Web Index
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