Since the holidays are quickly approaching, I thought I would write about Feast Days this week and explain why we as genealogists care about them. Every Sunday of the liturgical calendar is associated with some type of feast or “church holiday.” This may be something like Easter or it may be the 15th Sunday after Trinity. Feast Days are used in most churches that have any ties to the Catholic Church. In the Protestant Churches of our ancestors, these Feast Days still have their Latin names. This is an important concept to understand because often times a priest or clerk would record church events using the Feast Day as the date.
There are two types of Feast Days. First we have immovable or permanent Feast Days. These are holidays that occur on the same date every year. The easiest one to think of is Christmas, which always happens on 25 December. Other examples of immovable Feast Days are New Years (1 January), St Michael’s Day (29 September), All Saints Day (1 November) and Annunciation Day (25 March). There are lots of others.
The other type of Feast Days are moveable Feast Days. The easiest one of these to understand is Easter. I can’t tell you what day Easter was this year or what day it will be next year. Moveable Feast Days change dates from year to year. They are either based on the lunar calendar or on the sequential Sunday of another Feast Day. For example, the Sunday after Easter is called Quasimodogenti (or Quasimodo Sunday). Then we have all the Sundays of Trinity that fall in order after Trinity Sunday. Advent consists of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. All of these Feast Days change dates every year.
When we see records dated with a Feast Day, as a researcher we need to translate that Feast Day to an actual date. There are published resources that have tables of Feast Days. But the easiest way to find Feast Day Calendars is by using the FamilySearch wikis. A search for Feast Day Calendar will bring up a table that is searchable by year.
After selecting the year, you will see the list of Feast Days with their corresponding date. It’s a very simple table format.
If you need to view the list of Feast Days, you can also do that just by clicking the link for the alphabetical list of Feast Days.
I think that Feast Days are a rather simple subject to understand, yet they are key to successful research in the church records of our ancestors. If you learn how they are used in church records, you will be able to research much more proficiently.