It appears that the 2014-04-23 Debian build has something in it keeping the date and time updated between power-ups.
I don’t think it is the standard NTP, so am I wrong or is it something else?
Let's call it "sNTP"
afterwards, with network connection, normal "ntp" takes over..
Regards,
Pardon me, but that file is just reading /etc/timestamp; what is
_setting_ it---is it a monthly cron job or something?
It's set on the "day" i create the image..
https://github.com/beagleboard/image-builder/blob/master/scripts/chroot.sh#L229
It's more of "in the ball park" initial time setting for these rtc
less devices, better then 40 years off by default.. 
Regards,
Oh I see-- you said it's at most off by a month and I didn't realize
that you're just turning out new releases to update it 
BTW, maybe a monthly or weekly or daily cron job to update it is not
such a bad idea?
I run ntpdate at boot through a script/service I wrote. Short term this works fine, but a daily or maybe weekly cron job would probably be a good idea also. For now, I want to let my BBB run for a good long while and see how far off the time gets.
Someone had also suggested to me perhaps using a GPS module as I am told these keep time and very accurately. But this is something I will consider at a later date( and have not really looked into it ).