*[Alles Gute fuer eure Zukunft.]
We have been talking about who came in 1717. If we were to use the modern calendar, the answer might be that no one came in 1717. We may be totally barking up the wrong tree.
Why can we say this? In the early Eighteenth Century, the new year in England started on March 25 and ran from March 25 to the next March 24. When it was observed that the classical calendar was getting out of sync with the sun, Pope Gregory revised the calendar by dropping ten days. At the same time, it was decided to start the year on January 1. I don’t know why they chose this day but the first of any month would certainly be better than starting the new year in the middle of a month. In the European continental lands, especially where there was a strong Catholic element, the new calendar was adopted immediately, but England held out against the change just because it had a Popish flavor to it. So, for many years, there were two calendars in effect. Sometimes they were referred to as Old Style (OS) and New Style (NS).
We know that our Second Colony people left their homes in July, an unusually late time in the year to emigrate. Then in London they had some difficulty in finding a ship. When they did find one, the Captain (Tarbett) was thrown into Debtor’s prison. During August, and some of September at least, the Germans were in London waiting and attending church at St. Marys in the Strand, where they left a few records. We do not know when the ship got underway, but we do know that ten weeks was a very typical time for crossing the Atlantic. Some voyages were less but many were longer than this. The ship Oliver carrying passengers from Freudenberg was in transit for more than six months, but that was a very unusual case.
Not knowing when the ship Scott left London, and not knowing the time it took, we are hard pressed to say when it arrived, but it could well have been after January 1; however, using the calendar in use in England, if they arrived after January 1 but before March 25, they would have said that they arrived in 1717. Today, we would say that they arrived in the year 1718, if they had arrived in the period from January 1 to March 24. There is a good probability that they arrived in the year 1718 by the modern calendar.
The move to the Robinson River Valley was in 1725. If they arrived in 1718 and did serve seven years, this would be in agreement. It is not proof that they did arrive in 1718 (NS). Someone who says their ancestor arrived in 1717 may be in error on two points. They may have been a couple of years later and they may have been in 1718 (NS).
*[All the best for your future.]
(22 Feb 07)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.