Figured out how to do what I wanted with fixing up the author email but not touching the author date for the initial commit in a git repo: git rebase -i --root, mark initial commit as edit, git log to peep the original author date, then git commit --amend --date=$ORIGINAL<u>AUTHOR</u>DATE. The --amend automatically clobbers the author info (with the desired email), and the --date ensures you don't alter the date. Score!