diff --git a/sys/conf/newvers.sh b/sys/conf/newvers.sh
--- a/sys/conf/newvers.sh
+++ b/sys/conf/newvers.sh
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
     SYSDIR=$(dirname $0)/..
 fi
 
-RELDATE=$(awk '/__FreeBSD_version.*propagated to newvers/ {print $3}' ${PARAMFILE:-${SYSDIR}/sys/param.h})
+RELDATE=$(awk '/^\#define[[:space:]]*__FreeBSD_version/ {print $3}' ${PARAMFILE:-${SYSDIR}/sys/param.h})
 
 if [ -r "${SYSDIR}/../COPYRIGHT" ]; then
 	year=$(sed -Ee '/^Copyright .* The FreeBSD Project/!d;s/^.*1992-([0-9]*) .*$/\1/g' ${SYSDIR}/../COPYRIGHT)