From the Rowan Co NC mailing list. This may help some others who have struggled with this computation. Don't ask me questions as I haven't quite tried it yet, but it sounds logical. Betty Pace --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Myrna Madigan <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 15:16:25 -0500 Subject: Re: [RowanRoots] Birth date calculation At 01:23 PM 9/26/2002 -0500, Wallace Smith wrote: >I've been meaning to ask this for some time. Is there a formula or some >other way to calculate an ancestor's birth date, if the gravestone gives >the date of death and the age at death? For example: Died Sept.6, 1844. >Aged 59 yrs, 10 mos, 13 dys.Thanks for any help. > Wallace in New Orleans > Try it this way: 1844 09 06 - 59 10 13 after borrowed months and days, you have: 1843 20 37 - 59 10 13 =1784 10 24 You can plainly see that you will have to "borrow" and "carry" if you remember 3rd grade arithmetic. If you borrow a month, you will have to add 28-31 days to your days and that can be a tough one to figure. I usually use the number of days in the month prior to the death month. In this case, August, 31 days. If you borrow a year, add 12 months to your months. If you are lucky, your genealogy software has a "date calculator". Look under your menu item for "tools", "calculator", "date calculator". Mine indicates this person was born 24 Oct 1784. So I guess my calculation above is OK. Can't believe I got that right..... Myrna Madigan ==== ROWANROOTS Mailing List ==== The list administrator can be reached at [email protected]