Hi Kathy, I had that "double dating" (EX: 1750/1751) "flaw" in much earlier versions of my Family Tree Maker, and still have it in FTM 8.0. Surely many others in NEWGEN have been puzzled by this strange behavior. After several years of frustration, I discovered it is there for a reason. "Double dating" has something to do with conflicts in methods of dating in the 1700s or so. Some used the "Julian calendar" and others used the "Gregorian calendar". Way back then, people would enter both years for a date between Jan 1 and March 25 to indicate the correct year in both systems. Your FTM "Help" provides an explanation of why it does this wierd behavior. The practice of genealogy "double dating" during a certain period in history is something all should know, so I am quoting below from FTM's "Help" for all to see: (from FTM help): DOUBLE DATES: Beginning in 45 B.C., many parts of the world used the Julian calendar to mark the passage of time. According to the Julian calendar, March 25 was the first day of the year and each year was 365 days and 6 hours long. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII determined that the Julian calendar was incorrect: each day was just a little bit too long. This meant that the human calendar wasn't keeping up with nature's calendar, and the seasons kept arriving slightly earlier in the year. To solve the problem, Pope Gregory XIII created the Gregorian calendar. This is the calendar that we use officially in the United States. As you know, this new calendar changed the first day of the year from March 25 to January 1. Pope Gregory also had everyone jump ahead by 10 days to make up for the days that were lost when the world was using the old Julian calendar. The practice of writing double dates resulted from this switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, and also from the fact that not all countries and people accepted the new calendar at the same time. For example, England and the American colonies didn't officially accept the new calendar until 1752. Before 1752, the English government still observed March 25 as the first of the year, but most of the population observed January 1 as the first of the year. For this reason, many people wrote dates falling between January 1 and March 25 with both years, as in the following examples. Julian or Old Style Gregorian or New Style Double Date December 25, 1718 December 25, 1718 December 25, 1718 January 1, 1718 January 1, 1719 January 1, 1718/19 February 2, 1718 February 2, 1719 February 2, 1718/19 March 25, 1719 March 25, 1719 March 25, 1719 By the time England and the colonies adopted the new Gregorian calendar, the discrepancy between the two calendars was eleven days, instead of ten. To resolve the discrepancy, the government ordered that September 2, 1752 be followed by September 14, 1752. Some people also added 11 days to their birth dates (a fact which is not noted on their birth certificates). (Note: the date columns probably don't line up right in this mail list post, so go to your FTM "help" and look up "Double Dates" to see the correct column alignment.) Woody ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [email protected] writes: > To anyone who can help. > > I have an older program for Family Tree Maker and I must have hit a wrong > button or something. Now every time I put a date in the year shows up with > a "/" in it. Example February 3, 1750/51 when I want February 3, 1750. > How > do I fix it? I have tried and tried. I am sure it is something simple, > but > can't figure it out. Thanks for any help. Kathy Palmer >