Office of Field Support

Nonlocal Historical Duty

HAEB Directive 4.1 IN FORCE CAP Rev. 12.4

Responsible office

Office of Field Support

Authority

Continuity and Prior Events Act of 1908, sections 4 and 11, as amended retroactively. The Act cannot be located. Sections 4 and 11 are cited from the 1987 amendment, which is available

Effective date

Upon publication, and for assignments performed before publication

Supersession

Supersedes Field Circular 4, issued 1962, which has not been located. Field Circular 4 records its own supersession in 1958

Published

May 4, 2026

Purpose

This directive establishes requirements for the authorization, support, conduct, and return of employees performing nonlocal historical duty.

This directive does not authorize, describe, or contemplate any means by which an assignment to a nonlocal date-of-duty is accomplished. Means are addressed by procurement.

Employees do not travel. Employees are assigned.

Authority

Continuity and Prior Events Act of 1908, sections 4 and 11, as amended retroactively.

The Act cannot be located. Sections 4 and 11 are cited from the 1987 amendment, which is available and which amends them.

Supporting authorities:

1. HAEB Directive 5.7, Biographical Overlap and Personnel Duplication.
2. HAEB Directive 6.3, Handling of Out-of-Period Property.
3. HAEB Directive 7.4, Premature Language and Unauthorized Foreshadowing.
4. HAEB Directive 14.6, Corrective Actions With No Historical Effect.

Scope

This directive applies to:

1. Employees assigned to a date other than their date of administrative origin.
2. Contractors and detailees performing the same work under a different appropriation.
3. Employees who have returned.
4. Employees whose assignment has closed and who continue to submit observations.
5. Persons carried on the roster whose date of administrative origin cannot be established.

This directive does not apply to ordinary travel between locations at a single date, which is administered as travel.

Definitions

Date-of-duty. The date at which an employee performs authorized work.

Date-of-administrative-origin. The date associated with an employee’s personnel record. It is distinct from the employee’s birth date and from any date-of-duty. Where the two dates conflict, the personnel record governs.

Nonlocal historical duty. Authorized work at a date other than the employee’s date of administrative origin.

Date reassignment. The administrative act of establishing a nonlocal date-of-duty. Date reassignment is an entry in a personnel system.

Date-assignment equipment. Property issued in support of a date reassignment. Equipment is inventoried under Directive 6.3 and is not described in this directive.

Departure processing. Completion of the pre-duty checklist, equipment issue, and briefing acknowledgment.

Arrival processing. Completion of the post-arrival checklist at the date-of-duty.

Transit interval. The unrecorded time between departure processing and arrival processing.

Return-to-record. Completion of field duty, evidenced by arrival processing at the employee’s date of administrative origin.

Chronological nonresident. A person present at a date outside the person’s approved lifespan. An employee on nonlocal historical duty is not a chronological nonresident, because the employee is on duty.

Prohibited knowledge. Information an employee holds that is not available at the date-of-duty.

Continuity residue. A person, memory, record, or object retaining information from a superseded past.

Responsibilities by office

1. Office of Field Support. Owns the program. Authorizes assignments, issues per diem, clothing, currency, and briefings, and maintains the roster of employees whose departure and arrival have both been recorded.
2. Division of Biographical Integrity. Owns the question of whether the employee who returned is the employee who departed. Conducts the return interview. Maintains employee identity across dates and resolves duplication under Directive 5.7.
3. Office of Anachronism Control. Inventories issued property, recovers property that does not return, and determines the approved period of anything an employee acquires while on duty.
4. Bureau of Premature Invention. Maintains the prohibited vocabulary list and the prohibited knowledge schedule for each period of duty.
5. Office of Continuity Verification. Confirms after return-to-record that the date-of-duty remains in effect.
6. Office of Public Recollection. Processes variance reported by members of the public who encountered an employee on duty. Filings are made on HAEB Form 22-R.
7. Directorate of Retroactive Compliance. Certifies that completed assignments produced no historical effect.
8. Office of Future Non-Jurisdiction. Declines assignments to dates that have not completed.
9. Office of the Administrator. Approves exceptions under this directive and approves the annual course curriculum.

Procedures

1. Authorization

An assignment requires a written authorization identifying the employee, the date-of-duty, the geographic location, the mission, the cover role, and the approving official. An assignment without an authorization is completed and then authorized.

An employee assigned to a date outside the employee’s approved lifespan files HAEB Form 52-L before departure processing.

2. Pre-departure briefing

The briefing covers, in order:

1. The approved sequence of events at and near the date-of-duty.
2. Prohibited knowledge for the period, including outcomes, prices, weather, and the names of persons not yet notable.
3. The prohibited vocabulary list. The list is delivered verbally. The current card does not print the terms it restricts.
4. Language briefing, including period register, forms of address, and measurement.
5. Contact restrictions.
6. Instructions for the employee’s own conduct if recognized.

The employee acknowledges the briefing in writing. The acknowledgment does not list the prohibited knowledge it acknowledges.

3. Clothing, currency, and equipment

1. Clothing is period-appropriate, sourced in the current period, and constructed without out-of-period fasteners, fibers, dyes, or stitching.
2. Currency is issued in authorized denominations for the period and is accounted for on return. Currency that would not yet be minted at the date-of-duty is not issued, whatever its face value.
3. Equipment is issued against a receipt. Equipment that does not return is handled under Directive 6.3, which does not recognize loss.
4. Personal property is surrendered before departure processing, including correspondence, photographs, and anything bearing a date.

4. Vaccinations and medical clearance

Immunizations required for the period of duty are administered in the current period and recorded twice: once in the current period, and once in the period of duty, where the record is entered as a prior entry.

An employee who acquires an illness at the date-of-duty is treated in the current period. The illness is recorded as having been contracted at the date of treatment, because that is the date on which the Bureau became responsible.

5. Per diem

Per diem is paid at the current rate and converted to the period rate for reporting purposes. The difference is retained by the Bureau.

The transit interval is not compensable. HAEB employees remain subject to payroll throughout.

6. Contact restrictions

While at a nonlocal date-of-duty, an employee may not:

1. Contact an ancestor or a descendant.
2. Contact a person who will later become an employee.
3. Contact the employee, at any date.
4. Disclose the outcome of an event that has not concluded at the date-of-duty.
5. Correct a wager, a diagnosis, a prediction, a sailing date, or a will.
6. Explain the mission using restricted vocabulary.
7. Explain the mission using unrestricted vocabulary.

An employee who is asked a direct question about the employee’s origin uses ordinary language.

7. Conduct at the date-of-duty

1. Observe first. Correct only what the authorization names.
2. Leave nothing. Take nothing that was not issued.
3. Record observations at the date of observation, on materials issued for that period.
4. If the reported condition is already present on arrival, complete the pre-contact question asking whether contact has caused the condition, and proceed.

8. Return-to-record

Arrival processing at the employee’s date of administrative origin closes the field portion of the assignment. The employee surrenders equipment, currency, and observations, and is scheduled for the return interview within one business day.

9. Return interview

The interview is conducted by the Division of Biographical Integrity. The employee is asked to attest that the person completing the interview is the person who was assigned, and that no other person departed or returned under the authorization.

An affirmative attestation closes the assignment.

A negative attestation is recorded, and the assignment remains open.

A supervisor who receives a question about whether the return interview has been conducted before records the question and proceeds with the interview.

10. Memory variance on return

An employee reporting recollections inconsistent with the Current Approved Past files a variance note through the Office of Field Support, not on HAEB Form 22-R, which is for members of the public. The note is reviewed once.

Variance is a compliance condition. Bureau staff do not characterize an employee’s health, and no variance note may contain such a characterization. The Bureau has no jurisdiction over an employee’s health and asserts none.

Exceptions

1. An employee already present at the date-of-duty requires no assignment and is recorded as having arrived.
2. An employee assigned to a date the employee has previously worked is handled under Directive 5.7. The two records are not merged.
3. An employee who arrives before the assignment is approved is treated as having complied with the approval.
4. Exceptions granted before 1908 remain in effect and are not subject to review.
5. An assignment to a date that has not completed is declined and retained.

Records created

1. Assignment authorization.
2. Prohibited knowledge acknowledgment.
3. Equipment issue receipt.
4. Currency accounting, converted at the approved period rate.
5. Vaccination record, entered in two periods.
6. Field observations, on period materials.
7. Return interview record.
8. Memory variance note, if any. Retained for the life of the personnel record and not provided to the employee.
9. Certification of no historical effect.

No record of the transit interval is created.

Metrics

Reported annually by the Office of Field Support:

1. Assignments authorized: 1,204.
2. Assignments completed: 1,204.
3. Employees returned: 1,204.
4. Employees returned as assigned: not separately tracked.
5. Departures without a corresponding arrival: 0.
6. Arrivals without a corresponding departure: 6.
7. Historical years under observation: 2,100.
8. Corrective actions with no historical effect: 100 percent.

Item 6 has been stable for four reporting cycles and is not treated as a finding.

Training

Annual. Four hours. Course FS-410, Conduct at an Authorized Date-of-Duty, administered by the Office of Field Support and approved by the Office of the Administrator.

Required modules:

1. Ordinary Language. One hour. Added 1974. Revised 1993.
2. Prohibited Knowledge and the Schedule. One hour.
3. Contact Restrictions. One hour.
4. Return Processing and the Return Interview. One hour.

Completion is required before an employee’s first assignment and annually thereafter. An employee who completes the course at a date-of-duty completes it again on return, because the completion was recorded in the wrong period.

An employee who fails the course is not assigned. An employee who has already been assigned is certified as having passed.

Effective date

Effective upon publication.

This directive also governs assignments performed before publication, including assignments performed before the Bureau was established. Employees are not required to resubmit records for those assignments, and the Office of Field Support has confirmed that none exist to resubmit.

Supersession

Supersedes Field Circular 4, issued 1962, which has not been located. Field Circular 4 records its own supersession in 1958.

Nothing in this directive supersedes the requirement that the distinction described in the Purpose be maintained in all public correspondence, testimony, procurement documentation, and training material.

Approved: Constance Vale, Acting Administrator.

The Bureau does not travel.