I spent the weekend browsing through some awesome French civil registration records that have made their way online since the last time I checked out my French family tree. Trying to read the dates in French is hard enough for me since they are written out, but when the months are named after seasons and flowers (as in the French Republican Calendar) it gets downright difficult to figure out exactly when those people were born and died! For most of us, the Gregorian calendar in common use today is all we encounter in genealogy records. Eventually, however, as you make your way back in time, or delve into religious records, you'll likely encounter a few calendars and dates with which you aren't familiar. These calendars can complicate the recording of dates in your family tree, unless you learn how to accurately convert the calendar dates into a standard format.