## Dates in 19th century German records

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Recently, I had some German (Pfalz, Bavaria) records from the ealry 1800s translated. The records contained dates that were specified in an unusual format, and I was curious to know what these were. The dates referred to birth dates of children of a couple.

Specifically, the dates were:

1. Nivos Jahr 8
24te Frim. J. 13


These dates were translated as

first of Nivose Year 8
the 24th of Frimaire Year 13


The dates were all recorded on 19 Oct 1808, and that is how the date was recorded. Interestingly, the birth date of one of the children was recorded as "30. Dezember 1797".

## Answers

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These dates are written in the style of the calendar developed for the French Republic used by the government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805 so check who was occupying Bavaria at the time.

Many sources (even Wikipedia) enable inter-conversion with Gregorian dates.

In 1808 this part of Bavaria was under French control. Although these records were in German, many other records from this time and place were recorded in French. (And that makes them a lot easier to read!) – Gene Golovchinsky – 2012-12-04T03:24:27.893

THe other oddity is that the first child's date of birth (and the date the event was recorded) is given in a more conventional way. I wonder why the other dates were recorded in this funny way. – Gene Golovchinsky – 2012-12-04T03:33:59.637