Jeanine, I don't know what you know - but over here - in Ireland, we put the date first, then the month and then the year - from what I've seen my American friends put the month first. When it's any date before the 12th, I can end up scratching my head wondering if they are talking my time or theirs. Where else in the world deals with months and days in a different way to the way we do in Ireland - or.............who else does the same as we do. e.g. today is the 31st of December, 200r Me, I write that 31/12/2004 My American friends would write it 12/31/2004 if I've understood everything I've received from them correctly. and if we were to have a 12/4/04 date written - well, to me that reads 12th of April 2004 - for my American friends it would more than likely read 4th of 12th(December) 2004 - two totally different dates!! Genealogy - that may confuse us - but, by golly we confuse ourselves even more. Jane ----- Original Message ----- From: jeanine To: Dr. Jane Lyons ; Y-IRL@yahoogroups.com ; IRL-MONAGHAN-L@rootsweb.com ; IRL-LIMERICK-L@rootsweb.com ; IRL-LEIX ; IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com ; IRL-CLARE-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 12:29 AM Subject: Re: [Y-IRL] First and second rules of genealogy lists <snip>Also dates are easier if you use the day, month year: 4 Oct 1845 and not 10/4/1845, which someone might interpret April 10 instead of Oct 4. American & Europeans write it differently, so this way everyone knows what day & month we are talking about.

I wonder if the mystery of the two different ways of writing dates has to do with the way we speak the date aloud. In Jane's post, she said "today is the 31st of December, 2004," and that she would write it 31/12/2004. Here in the States, we usually say (at least I think we do!) "December 31, 2004." I seem to say the day first only when speaking of Holidays, e.g.,the Fourth of July. In other words, the way we say the date in words perhaps dictates the way we write it in numbers. Just a thought. But I, too, Jane, have to think carefully when reading Irish or British dates; it's especially tricky when the date is something like April 3--or is it March 4? Cheers, Jude ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dr. Jane Lyons" <sniliaghin@iol.ie> To: <IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 7:41 PM Subject: [GALWAY] LOL Day/Month/Year Re: [Y-IRL] First and second rules of genealogy lists > Jeanine, > > I don't know what you know - but over here - in Ireland, we put the date first, then the month and then the year - from what I've seen my American friends put the month first. > > When it's any date before the 12th, I can end up scratching my head wondering if they are talking my time or theirs. > > Where else in the world deals with months and days in a different way to the way we do in Ireland - or.............who else does the same as we do. > > e.g. today is the 31st of December, 200r > > Me, I write that 31/12/2004 > > My American friends would write it 12/31/2004 if I've understood everything I've received from them correctly. > > and if we were to have a 12/4/04 date written - well, to me that reads 12th of April 2004 - for my American friends it would more than likely read 4th of 12th(December) 2004 - two totally different dates!! > > Genealogy - that may confuse us - but, by golly we confuse ourselves even more. > > Jane

I think most European countries and those who are associated with the British Commonwealth, such as Canada, use day/month/year. Canadians do a lot of business with the USA on a daily basis and must be diligent in observing the information. Perhaps some day we will all use the ISO 8601 Standard of YYYY-MM-DD. I note a lot of agencies using computer based data sets have been using the latter for some time. Michael Murphy All emails are scanned for viruses on arrival and before sending using Norton AntiVirus Technology with the most recent updates checked daily and downloaded on demand. -----Original Message----- From: JFW [mailto:jowyn@adelphia.net] Sent: December 30, 2004 10:48 PM To: IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GALWAY] LOL Day/Month/Year I wonder if the mystery of the two different ways of writing dates has to do with the way we speak the date aloud. In Jane's post, she said "today is the 31st of December, 2004," and that she would write it 31/12/2004. Here in the States, we usually say (at least I think we do!) "December 31, 2004." I seem to say the day first only when speaking of Holidays, e.g.,the Fourth of July. In other words, the way we say the date in words perhaps dictates the way we write it in numbers. Just a thought. But I, too, Jane, have to think carefully when reading Irish or British dates; it's especially tricky when the date is something like April 3--or is it March 4? Cheers, Jude ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dr. Jane Lyons" <sniliaghin@iol.ie> To: <IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 7:41 PM Subject: [GALWAY] LOL Day/Month/Year Re: [Y-IRL] First and second rules of genealogy lists > Jeanine, > > I don't know what you know - but over here - in Ireland, we put the date first, then the month and then the year - from what I've seen my American friends put the month first. > > When it's any date before the 12th, I can end up scratching my head wondering if they are talking my time or theirs. > > Where else in the world deals with months and days in a different way to the way we do in Ireland - or.............who else does the same as we do. > > e.g. today is the 31st of December, 200r > > Me, I write that 31/12/2004 > > My American friends would write it 12/31/2004 if I've understood everything I've received from them correctly. > > and if we were to have a 12/4/04 date written - well, to me that reads 12th of April 2004 - for my American friends it would more than likely read 4th of 12th(December) 2004 - two totally different dates!! > > Genealogy - that may confuse us - but, by golly we confuse ourselves even more. > > Jane ==== IRL-GALWAY Mailing List ==== New!! Irish-American Mailing List, http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Ethnic-Irish/IRISH-AMERICAN.html To unsub or change your Irl-Galway mailing mode: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/intl/IRL/IRL-GALWAY.html ============================== Census images 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871, plus so much more. Ancestry.com's United Kingdom & Ireland Collection. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13968/rd.ashx

Being educated in England, I too am most familiar with the dd/mm/yyyy format and still automatically think that way, it also seems to look more correct when writing the date with the month as a word. (That is probably only due to being taught that way). Since moving to South Africa, they and a lot of other European countries use the yyyy/mm/dd format which to me now makes more logical sense. It's a natural left to right progression from the largest to the smallest field which stays true when the time is also quoted, i.e. yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss The other major advantage I find with this format is Processing and Filing, the initial thing you want to know is the 1st field, what year did the event happen? Then which month, etc, etc. i.e. To narrow it down from the most significant field. More specifically, it aids with naming of files on the PC, when the date is, or is included as part of the filename. As the PC's natural sort order of filenames is from left to right, it allows the files to be listed in a true continuous date sequential order, whether selected for ascending or descending (irrespective of the date/time the file was saved). The English format tends to group the files according to the numeric value of the first date field, i.e. all files starting with the day 01-mm-yyyy, then 02-mm-yyyy, then 03-mm-yyyy, etc, etc. (this holds true whether the date is at the beginning of the filename or preceded with other meaningful characters). Note: you cannot use the "/" slash character in filenames, but you can substitute the slash with a dash "-" which is quite commonly used, and it clearly indicates the date part. Since the start of the new millennium and to reduce date confusion, I have adopted the principal of always stating the year in full (i.e. 02/03/04 as 2004-03-02, as only the year has 4 digits, it partially indicates the date format used). For PC sort & cosmetic purposes, I always precede a single digit date or month with a leading zero, i.e. 5/2/2004 as 2004-02-05 for 5th Feb 2004. Fortunately, my genealogy database program, "Legacy Family Tree", caters for multiple date display and entry formats. There are quite a few areas of formatting and terminology that cause unnecessary conflict which could and should be standardised internationally, such as dates, currencies, weights & measures, etc, but that is a whole new topic, not really suitable for a genealogy list. regards Brian (nr JoBurg,SA, ex.Bolsover,DBY) -----Original Message----- From: Dr. Jane Lyons [mailto:sniliaghin@iol.ie] Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 2:42 AM To: IRL-GALWAY-L@rootsweb.com Subject: LOL Day/Month/Year Re: [Y-IRL] First and second rules of genealogy lists Jeanine, I don't know what you know - but over here - in Ireland, we put the date first, then the month and then the year - from what I've seen my American friends put the month first. <SNIP> Scanned by http://www.eject.co.za 's anti-virus solution