George Mason law school to be renamed the Antonin Scalia School of Law

[happyslug]

59. In the 1700s many families used baptism date not birth date.

Thus he was born on December 11, 1725. Given Christmas was just 14 days later, his parents may have weighted till Christmas to baptist him.

Remember the only record of his birth would have been in the family bible and in local church records. Virginia's establised church was the Church of England, thus all birth records were maintained by that church not the colonial givernment. Other religions existed in Virginia, and kept such records of their members.

On the hand even after Virginia dis-established the Church of England in the 1790s, the government of Virginia did not keep records of birth and dearhs. Such records were not generally kept by the states till the mid 1800s, and then at the county level (even today many African-Americans do not have records of they birth in any state record).

State level records of birth and deaths generally were not adopted till after 1900. When Social Security was adopted in the 1930s, this lack of records of birth was acknowledged by Social Security by saying you could use records of baptism and even family bibles as proof as to your date of birth. Such records were still being accepted by Social Security as late as the 1980s (Social Security may still be accepting those records, but given illegal immigration regulations I have not heard of them since the 1980s but given the problems some elderly African-Americans have had using such records I suspect the rules have changed).

Thus when Britain adopted the Gregorian calender his birth date moved to December 22, 1725, but if he was baptised on Christmas day 1725, Julian calender, that became January 5, 1726 Gregorian calendar. Even in England today some towns hold events on "Old Christmas Day" so the change over was not total, many older dates were kept for long periods of time after the switchover.

Thus the two different years may reflect the actual records of his birth, but the only record may be the date of baptism not of birth.