I suggested ordinal numbers '1st' to '9th' for several reasons. (1) They would probably avoid conflict with any other use of the Descriptor. (2) I got the feeling that '1st' satisfied the main need and the rest were a bonus, and beyond '9th' was probably irrelevant. (3) Sorting on those works whether treated as numerical or textual. The danger of just allowing any digits is that they must all be the same length otherwise textual sorting would go 1, 10, 11, 100, 2, 23, 3, 300, so care must be taken in Queries, Columns, Plugins to convert to numerical format before sorting. I was expecting the user would set the Descriptor as they entered the data, and the Plugin would simply sort without any dialogue, just like the current FH re-ordering commands. However, I am happy to go with the majority. Regards, Mike Tate -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: 20 March 2014 18:04 Be good to standardise, but I don't see why a restriction of 9 is necessary or sufficient (you could have more than nine birth-dates for an individual from different sources, for example -- 8 censuses, a marriage and a baptism) -- why not just use numbers and order lowest to highest? That way somebody could choose to number 100, 200, 300 etc. and slip an entry in between 100 and 200 without needing to re-number anything. ColeValleyGirl www.colevalleygirl.co.uk Moderator, genealogy.stackexchange.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: 20 March 2014 17:55 May I suggest that the Descriptor values should be standardised on the ordinal numbers 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ..., 9th. (Nine should be enough.) Then not only could a Plugin order the Facts in the Properties Box appropriately, but Fact Queries, and Record Window Columns could also filter and order the Facts according to the Descriptor. Regards, Mike Tate