Guide
How to date an old letter with no date on it
Many family letters carry only “Sunday” or “Tuesday evening”. A date is rarely written down, but it is usually recoverable: the envelope, the weekday, the events mentioned and the paper itself all narrow it. Work from the strongest clue to the weakest, and record how sure you are.
1. Start with the envelope
A postmark can give a place and a day, and a stamp gives a rough range of years. If the envelope is missing, look at the letter for a return address or a note such as “Sent with Joe”, which means it never went through the post. Photograph both sides of every sheet so these clues stay with the letter.
2. Use the weekday
“Tuesday the 4th of March” can only be true in some years. Look up which years in the likely range had March 4 on a Tuesday; a perpetual calendar will list them. Together with a decade from the stamp or the handwriting, the match is often unique. A weekday that does not match the date is a clue too: the writer may have slipped, or the date is wrong.
3. Look for events and holidays
- Movable holidays — Easter, Thanksgiving and Whitsun fall on different dates each year, so “Easter Sunday” narrows the year as well as the day.
- Public events — an election, a storm, a launch or a death named in the letter can be searched in newspaper archives.
- Ages and anniversaries — “Mary turned six last week” plus a birth record gives a year.
- Prices, jobs and addresses — a home address that is only valid for a few years is a dated clue.
4. Know the old date styles
- Inst., ult., prox. — this month, last month and next month, relative to the letter’s own date. See old cursive letterforms and date terms.
- Old style and new style. Britain and its colonies moved to the modern calendar in 1752, and before that the legal year began on 25 March, so a January–March date may belong to the year before the one you expect. Other countries changed at other times.
- Quaker dating used numbers instead of month names (“4th of 3rd month”), and the numbering changed with the calendar.
- Two-digit years such as “’14” depend on the century; use the rest of the letter to decide.
5. Record your reasoning and confidence
Write down the date you settled on, the clues that support it and a confidence level. A format like [c. 1916, probably autumn: postmark and weekday] is clear to the next reader and does not claim more than you know. Keep the writer’s own date, if any, exactly as written in the transcription.
Still struggling to read the writing? Start with how to read an old handwritten letter.
Honest limits
Some letters cannot be dated closely, and a confident wrong date can send a family tree down the wrong branch. If the date matters for a legal or inheritance question, treat these methods as leads to confirm with records, not as proof.
Questions
- What if the letter has a date but I do not trust it?
- Check it against the weekday if one is given, the postmark and the events mentioned. Writers misdate letters at New Year, and a date written as a number can be misread.
- How accurate can a date be without a postmark?
- Often to a year or a season, and sometimes to the day if the letter names a holiday or a dated event. A range with your reasons is better than a single date that cannot be defended.
- Should I write the date on the original letter?
- No. Do not write on the original. Keep your estimate in a separate note or in the transcription, clearly marked as yours.