Phenological research establishes the science of nature's natural calendar. This research, the monitoring and analysis of seasonal rhythms of plants and animals, is commonly based on citizen science data. Such data may be digitized from primary sources provided by the citizen scientist’s original phenological diaries. Secondary data sources are formed by historical publications (for example, yearbooks and climate bulletins). While primary data has the advantage of first-hand notetaking, its digitization may, in practice, be time-consuming. Contrastingly, secondary data can contain well-organized typesetting, making digitization less labour-intensive. However, secondary data can be reshaped by the motivations of the historical actors who were collating the data. This study compared data from 1876–1894 gathered originally by citizen scientists (primary data) and the secondary data founded upon the previous primary data, later published by the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters as a series of phenological yearbooks. In the secondary data, the recorded numbers of taxa and their phenological stages appeared to be fewer and phenological events standardized, with an increased prevalence of agricultural phenology (at the cost of autumn phenology). Moreover, it seems the secondary data had been screened for potential outliers. While secondary sources may provide current phenologists with coherent sets of relevant data, future users must be aware of potential data reshaping resulting from the preferences of historical actors. These actors may weigh and limit the original observations according to their own criteria and preferences.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00114-023-01861-w.