Dear Cousins, I've gotten a message from our cousin Marilyn, along with her 's e-mail address again, and she poses a very good question: How can Quaker dates be properly used in genealogy software programs. (Hers is Family Treemaker.) Like Marilyn, I've discovered there is no accommodation for Quaker dates, and since I don't care for most of their other features that rob the user of making his/her own determinations about the entry features, I simply have a set of rules to deal with Quaker dates. I started doing this after I sent some Quaker information to a person who was beginning research and he responded that he had found conflicting dates to what I had sent him. Boy was I embarrassed. It had been so long ago, I couldn't remember how I'd entered them, and whether they were Quaker style, or had been "translated." So I decided I'd fool the machine. (First, let me say, I only use these programs when I'm desperate for organization!) Most software has the option of entering MDY or DMY in either numerals for the dates or with the Month written out. Use the numerals for all of it, and then in the notes part of the entry, indicate that the person is Quaker and that the dates entered are Quaker dates. For instance, for a birthdate of 29th day of First Month 1736, I would enter, in DMY format, 29-1-1736. Then in the notation section I would show that the person was born 29th, First Month 1736 in East Nottingham township, Chester County, PA, and that the record came from Nottingham MM records shown in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of Quaker Records, Volume 2. Or whatever! I put every record of every person in the notations section the same way, so that when a group sheet is printed out, or a family record, it shows all of them. After that embarrassment, I ALWAYS use Quaker dates for Quakers. And now, I always recheck the work of others who are presenting information about Quaker families, and find very often that they have misinterpreted the dates of Quakers as January instead of First Month, for example. This is very disheartening. Another common failing when using Quaker information from the LDS IGI, which has lots of the records from Monthly Meetings included in it. Invariably the records will contain incorrect birth locations for children, because the dates were re-recorded at the new Monthly Meeting where the family had moved. I have often found this happened with the Ohio MM records shown as birth locations when actually the children had been born in Pennsylvania. If anyone has any better ideas for "beating the system" on Quaker dates in software programs, let's hear 'em! Dick Matson! I got your lovely records, and find lots of things that are of interest in the current study of people from AA county, and also once they moved northward to Spesutia Hundred. Thank you for sharing. I am certain it is all going to come together. Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn