24. French Revolutionary Calendar

 

While researching some of my wife’s ancestors who lived in Alscace, France circa 1800, I struggled to make out the date on several of the online archive records.  I always thought she had German heritage, but Alsace could be French or German, depending on who won the last war.  Currently, it is a department of France. 

 

Well, it seems that during the early days of the French Rebellion, the new order decided to implement a radical new weights and measures system totally divorced from royalty and religion.  There was also a lot of beheading of royalty and religious figures so the decimalization effort could be seen as relatively civilized.  The decimalization of France eventually led to the metric system we have today.  Well, for most countries today.  

 

For the revolutionary calendar, they devised a system that had four seasons.  Each of these seasons had three months.  Each month had three weeks of ten days each.  And, they all had different names!  Get ready for a whole new dictionary of names.  According to the committee, the beginning of time began with the revolution. 

 

In my case, one date was written as “The 10 Prairial of the year IX of the French Republic”.  This translates to May 30, 1801.  Who knew?

 

So, if you are researching old French records, beware of these strange date designations.  The good news is that the Republic only used this calendar for a 12-year period from 1793 to 1805.  So, ends your history lesson for today.

 

For more information like this, consider joining your local genealogical society.   

 

Ron Gilmore

Email:            rvg3@me.com

Website:       https://www.rgenealogy.ca