Hi Marsha, I'll answer this one on-line as other people may be interested. You didn't say what version of Excel you're using so this is just a general run down. You'll have to work out the nitty gritty bits for your version. Open a new workbook Excel gives you 3 sheets. You only need the one. Click on the Sheet3 tab down on the bottom left hand side of the screen. This brings up the third sheet. Click on "Edit" in the menu bar across the top of the screen and then click on "Delete Sheet", click on "OK" Now do the same with the Sheet2. That leaves you with Sheet1. Label your columns in the top, number 1 row. I'd suggest you have at least five columns labelled 'Surname', 'GivenName', 'Born', 'Died' and 'Age' and keep them together and in that order. You can have whatever other columns you desire but keep these together and in that order. Select the top row with your labels in it by clicking on the 1 to the far left of the row and change the type of font used to something different to what you are using in the body of the database, or you can change the size of the font, or make it BOLD, or if you like you can do all three. It doesn't matter as long as the top row with your labels in it is different to the body of the database. This is what tells Excel that it is a database. Click on the 2 at the far left of the second row to select it. Click on "Window" in the menu bar across the top of the screen. Click on "Freeze Panes." This will keep your labels in place while you scroll down the database. Now comes the trick part. Excel can't handle dates before 1900, Excel mangles dates if the formats are different. In genealogy we mix dates in the same column with single years which causes Excel to chuck a fit. A database expects only the one kind or type of thing in each column. By mixing dates with single years we cause problems. Select the column or columns where you are going to put the dates and years by clicking on the letters way up on top of the columns. ie. above the 'Born' and 'Died' columns. Click on "Format" in the menu bar across the top of the screen, click on "Cells" and in the dialog box that opens up click on the "Number" tab if it is not already open, click on "Text" in the 'Category' box and then click on the "OK" button. This will make everything that you put into those columns text. Try it. Widen your column and you'll see that dates and numbers go to the right of the column and text goes to the left even if the text is in the form of numbers or dates. That's about it for the actual database. The usual date format for genealogy is day, month year. that's dd mmm yyyy or 06 Apr 1957 with a space in between them. I use two figures for the day as it looks a lot neater, some don't. The year must always be given in four figures to avoid any confusion. If you only have the month and year I'd reccomend Apr 1957, don't put zeros for unknowns. Each row or line in your database should only contain one individual. If you have two people put them each on their own row or line. Everyone deserves their own place in history. It makes them easier to find, too. Captialization of surnames isn't necessary if you have them in a column labelled "Surnames" Surnames should always be capitalised if they are in prose. This makes them easier to find on the page or within a transcript. It's not necessary in a database with a Surname column. Lot's of people do it but it's not really necessary. I got to be careful here. If you look at Ian Marr's work, he capitalizes the surname but he has the Surname and the Given name in the same column. That makes sense and it makes it easy to differentiate between the two. For sorting purposes titles, such as Dr., Mr., JP., Rev. should go after the Given names, not before. If at some time after you have started your database you wish to insert another column, Label it as soon as you insert it, and if you want, format it at the same time. If you go to sort the database and there is a column unlabelled it will scramble all your data. Keep a watch on the Sort dialog box when sorting. If it gives you Column G or Column whatever instead of your labels then it's going to mangle your database. Hit the "Cancel" key and check your labels. You can select your whole database by clicking on the blank little square up in the top left hand corner between the "1" and the "A". How's Marmaduke the cat going ? Yours Garry.