Link to the register : https://www.familysearch.org/search/image/show#uri=https%3A//api.familysearch.org/records/waypoint/10831304

Hi All > On 28 Jun 2011 at 0:32, Keith Meintjes wrote: >> I bought a spreadsheet, not a dumb table. I beg to differ! We all bought a dumb table instead of a spreadsheet especially if we have bought Excel. I have not been following this thread since I long ago gave up trying to use excel for date and time calculations. The programmers have taken a short-cut by using the PC BIOS date and time for calculations, assuming that we will only live during that period. On most machines the first BIOS day is 1st Jan 1900. The PC cannot go below that date as this is the "beginning of the world".! "Life" in the PC world is also only (usually?) 23 hours and 59 minutes long. It does not live for say perhaps 123 hours. I now live in the "real world" and for anything beyond that I use PAF to calculate differences in years in the "unreal" world. This way I do not get frustrated and so shorten my life to that of the PC! It takes longer but then hey I'll live longer too! ;o) Regards Mike

Hello Steve, Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 6:13:41 AM, you wrote: SH> I mostly use Inmagic, which isn't relational, but is rather a text database, SH> but it handles dates OK, in that it can understand and sort on partial dates, SH> and even recognises them if you enter them in different formats. You can have SH> 23-May-1783, or 23-5-1793 or 7/23/1793 and it will sort it correctly. It SH> will even recognise c1793, though the program authors intended that to mean SH> "copyright" rather than "circa", but it works. SH> I no of no spreadsheet that can do that, and no relational database program SH> that can do it either I tried lots of genealogical databases when I first came to computerised genealogy but have found my old Family Tree Maker version 11 quite adequate for my needs. I tested it and legacy (a free program) with the date formats you give above (23-May-1783, or 23-5-1793 or 7/23/1793) - legacy accepts the all quite happily and interprets them correctly. FTM ver 11 also does so but is not happy with 7/23/1793 since I have set it to read such dates in the format day/month/year - give 23/7/1793 it is quite happy. Both the above programs will accept partial dates June 1793 or just 1793 or 2 June How you would judge whether such a partial date was correctly sorted I am not sure. I have found that using a specifically genealogical database has revolutionised my genealogical research and I certainly could not imagine managing without one. Cheers, Richard -- Richard Ball, Norfolk, England http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk richard.ball@ballfamilyrecords.co.uk

Hi everyone, A friend of mine went to a Family History Society fair in York on Saturday and came back with a very useful set of abbreviations which she kindly sent to me. Knowing a lot of you guys have British Ancestry I thought it might be a useful guide to have! I had to have South African abbreviations explained to me! I am typing it exactly as she wrote it! Many are self-evident but some I'd not come across before! Abbreviations in Parish Registers. b = born bach = bachelor bap = baptized bapt = baptizatus/a btc = both of this chapelry btp = both of this Parish ch = child Ch = Church Chyd = Churchyard d = daughter d + date = died f = filius, filia (son, daughter - Latin) h = husband illeg. = illegitimate in matr.cop. = in matrimonis copulabantur jun = junior lab = labourer lic = by licence mar = married mth = month otc = of this chapelry otp = of this parish pa = parish s = son sen = senior sep = sepultus/a spr = spinster ux = uxot. vid = vidua w = witness wdr = widower wf = wife wid = widow wk = week yeo = yeoman (a yeoman farmer was a farmer who owned his farm rather than renting it) best wishes, Tombi Peck

On 28 Jun 2011 at 0:32, Keith Meintjes wrote: > I bought a spreadsheet, not a dumb table. I expect to be able to do > calculations involving dates, such as: Age at death, mother's age when > bearing children, etc. There are a host of age-related calculations you can > (or should be able to) make to check your data. True, but most spreadsheets' date functions do not gom back much more than a century, so they are useless for that purpose. Database programs are better - I used Paradox at one time, where date functions worked back to AD 200, thopugh it took no account of things like changes in the calendar, but worked everything out in Gregorian. I don't know what currently available relational database programs, like Access and Base, do with dates. I mostly use Inmagic, which isn't relational, but is rather a text database, but it handles dates OK, in that it can understand and sort on partial dates, and even recognises them if you enter them in different formats. You can have 23-May-1783, or 23-5-1793 or 7/23/1793 and it will sort it correctly. It will even recognise c1793, though the program authors intended that to mean "copyright" rather than "circa", but it works. I no of no spreadsheet that can do that, and no relational database program that can do it either, unless you write a lot of scripts, which the purveyors of lineage-linked genealogy software must do. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Web: http://hayesstw.tumblr.com/ (follow me on Tumblr) Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525

Keith, On 2011/06/28 06:32 AM, Keith Meintjes wrote: > For Delia and Steve: > > I bought a spreadsheet, not a dumb table. I expect to be able to do > calculations involving dates, such as: Age at death, mother's age when > bearing children, etc. There are a host of age-related calculations you can > (or should be able to) make to check your data. You bought spreadsheet sotware that never promised to do the calculations you want - there were always date limitations. What you need is a proper genealogical relational database program that automatically does these basic calculations and displays them on the individual's page without you even having to ask it; and does the more complicated ones in milliseconds with a simple popup utility. Delia

For Delia and Steve: I bought a spreadsheet, not a dumb table. I expect to be able to do calculations involving dates, such as: Age at death, mother's age when bearing children, etc. There are a host of age-related calculations you can (or should be able to) make to check your data. For Paxie and Karel: In Excel 2000 PC, Day 0 is "0 Jan 1900". Whatever that is. Day -2 is :"#########################################################################", it will fill the display with "#", no matter how many characters. Day 60 is "February 29, 1900", a leap year day that did not exist. What Karel tells us of Open Office is quite clever: Day 0 is "December 30, 1899". I presume they correct the 1900 leap year error, and then in Open Office the day number for dates after March 1, 1900 is the same as that in the Excel 1900 date system. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:30:46 AM EDT From: "Paxie Kelsey" <paxie@telkomsa.net> To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel Karel surely -2 should be the 30 Dec 1899 and day 60 should be 01/03/1900 ? Regards P ----- Original Message ----- From: Karel Marais To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel Hi, Glad to report that -2 changed to dateformat on my openoffice calc gives a date of 28 December 1899 Day 60 also formats correctly to 28/02/1900 ...might be time to get some free software :-) Cheers, Karel Marais Marais x Thurnau Lloyd x Pienaar Bennett x Cloete Webber x Maskrey Kapp x Slabbert, Bestbier Du Toit --- On Fri, 24/6/11, Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> wrote: From: Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel To: "SA List" <SOUTH-AFRICA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, 24 June, 2011, 3:18 All, May I complain a little bit? I am amazed to find the limitations and errors in Excel's default date calculations. I will have to go back and check my spreadsheets for date calculations. 1. Day 1 (on the PC) and Day 0 (on the Mac) are four years apart. If you cut and paste dates from one platform to the other, they will differ by four years and one day. To check: Make a new spreadsheet, type 1 in a cell, and then format it as a date. If the result is Jan 1, 1900 you are on the default for a PC. If the result is Jan 2, 1904, you are on the default for a Mac. 2. 1900 was not a leap year. But, Excel preserves a bug in Lotus123 that it was. So, on a PC, any day calculation before March 1, 1900, (but after Jan 1, 1900) will be in error by one day. 3. Dates before Jan 1 1900 (on the PC) and before Jan 1 1904 (on the Mac) do not exist. On the PC (1900 system) they are undefined. On the Mac, they are a negative reflection of the future! Make a new spreadsheet, type -2 in a cell, and then format it as a date. On a PC you will get an infinite string of ####, on a Mac you will get -Sunday, January 3, 1904. If you want to be a geek, you can switch the setting: Options, Advanced, Calculate, Check or uncheck the box for 1994 date system. It just blows my mind that when you copy data between spreadsheets, Excel does not check and reconcile the date system. Also, the 1900 leap year error persists? Finally, I do not care what "zero" is. But, (negative) dates before zero are wrong or undefined? Give me a break! These are simple issues to fix. Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Yes, It is disconcerting. In the US it is common to see a sign like this posted 100 m before a freeway exit: "Monster Cave - next exit". They mean: "This exit". In ZA, of course, it would be the exit after this one. Krith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:30:29 AM EDT From: "Steve Hayes" <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel On 27 Jun 2011 at 17:36, Andrew Rodger wrote: > midnight, the one before or after, respectively). Likewise people > will say on a Tuesday that something will happen "this Thursday" -- > by which, of course, they mean "next Thursday". You can only say > "this Thursday" if today is Thursday. but would do this for emphasis > on the fact that it is Thursday, otherwise "today" is fine. And in > SA (which point may just keep this from being off-topic!) they often > say "Ne-e-e-ext Thursday" when it is not yet Thursday this week and > they mean Thursday next week. That is frequently expressed as "Thursday next of next week". Only in South Africa, as far as I know. -- Keep well, Steve Hayes Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com http://hayesfam.posterous.com/ E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

On 27 Jun 2011, at 2:44 PM, DRobertson wrote: > There are two simple solutions to this, and both make far more > sense for > a variety of reasons beyond the built-in limitations, than using > any of > the standardised date formats: > > 1. Enter dates as numbers, starting with the year, viz: 15000627 or > 20110627 > 2. Use 3 columns for dates, entered as numbers, one each for: > YYYY MM DD > > Delia Robertson Makes sense. It is also the military method of denoting dates in operational communications, though they have two further wrinkles: 1. Three more fields for HH, MM, SS, and 2. They never stipulate midnight, because of the possible confusion as to the date (on the basis that it could be the midnight concluding the day or the one beginning it). Instead, they always say either 2359 or 0001, putting the matter beyond doubt. I suppose they could say 2400 or 0000, but then very few military operations are criitical to the exact second, so the one-second difference either way doesn't make an operational difference. BTW, have you noticed how many people say "12 p.m.", meaning noon? It's quite wrong, the M stands for "meridiem" (noon), which is neither before noon nor after it, so one should say "noon" or "1200" (indeed, one could argue that both a.m. and p.m. could mean midnight, the one before or after, respectively). Likewise people will say on a Tuesday that something will happen "this Thursday" -- by which, of course, they mean "next Thursday". You can only say "this Thursday" if today is Thursday. but would do this for emphasis on the fact that it is Thursday, otherwise "today" is fine. And in SA (which point may just keep this from being off-topic!) they often say "Ne-e-e-ext Thursday" when it is not yet Thursday this week and they mean Thursday next week. Don't you just love pedantry as a sport? Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com

On 27 Jun 2011 at 17:36, Andrew Rodger wrote: > midnight, the one before or after, respectively). Likewise people > will say on a Tuesday that something will happen "this Thursday" -- > by which, of course, they mean "next Thursday". You can only say > "this Thursday" if today is Thursday. but would do this for emphasis > on the fact that it is Thursday, otherwise "today" is fine. And in > SA (which point may just keep this from being off-topic!) they often > say "Ne-e-e-ext Thursday" when it is not yet Thursday this week and > they mean Thursday next week. That is frequently expressed as "Thursday next of next week". Only in South Africa, as far as I know. -- Keep well, Steve Hayes Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com http://hayesfam.posterous.com/ E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk

On 27 Jun 2011 at 6:44, DRobertson wrote: > There are two simple solutions to this, and both make far more sense for a > variety of reasons beyond the built-in limitations, than using any of the > standardised date formats: > > 1. Enter dates as numbers, starting with the year, viz: 15000627 or > 20110627 > 2. Use 3 columns for dates, entered as numbers, one each for: YYYY MM DD That is what I do when using spreadsheets or ordinary database files, because most database software cannot parse partial dates. For readability I usually use 1923-03-23, and it copes quite well with 1923- 03-00 or 1923-00-00 Separate columns also works, of course, and makes it easiet to select date ranges. -- Steve Hayes E-mail: shayes@dunelm.org.uk Web: http://hayesstw.tumblr.com/ (follow me on Tumblr) Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525

In too offer my congrats...fantastic work...have been able to fill in some gaps in my tree now...many many thanks you`S dELIA All the best with your future work Regards Cate On 27 June 2011 06:49, April <adale41@googlemail.com> wrote: > Delia, congratulations to you for all your hard work in compiling this > wonderful historic information. How generous the compilers of African > genealogy are, in supplying freely, information for families who are > finding their roots. > > I shall wait patiently for information to appear for later years that > will include, hopefully, one or two of my ancesters. > > Meanwhile, a very big thank you to you Delia and all those who assisted > you, for making this list available to one and all. I'm sure there > must be a lot of happy family genealogists on this list because they > found their roots. > > Kind regards. > > April England UK > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Oops Karel ... sorry! I think I misinterpreted your inference! P ----- Original Message ----- From: Karel Marais To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel Hi, Glad to report that -2 changed to dateformat on my openoffice calc gives a date of 28 December 1899 Day 60 also formats correctly to 28/02/1900 ...might be time to get some free software :-) Cheers, Karel Marais Marais x Thurnau Lloyd x Pienaar Bennett x Cloete Webber x Maskrey Kapp x Slabbert, Bestbier Du Toit --- On Fri, 24/6/11, Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> wrote: From: Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel To: "SA List" <SOUTH-AFRICA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, 24 June, 2011, 3:18 All, May I complain a little bit? I am amazed to find the limitations and errors in Excel's default date calculations. I will have to go back and check my spreadsheets for date calculations. 1. Day 1 (on the PC) and Day 0 (on the Mac) are four years apart. If you cut and paste dates from one platform to the other, they will differ by four years and one day. To check: Make a new spreadsheet, type 1 in a cell, and then format it as a date. If the result is Jan 1, 1900 you are on the default for a PC. If the result is Jan 2, 1904, you are on the default for a Mac. 2. 1900 was not a leap year. But, Excel preserves a bug in Lotus123 that it was. So, on a PC, any day calculation before March 1, 1900, (but after Jan 1, 1900) will be in error by one day. 3. Dates before Jan 1 1900 (on the PC) and before Jan 1 1904 (on the Mac) do not exist. On the PC (1900 system) they are undefined. On the Mac, they are a negative reflection of the future! Make a new spreadsheet, type -2 in a cell, and then format it as a date. On a PC you will get an infinite string of ####, on a Mac you will get -Sunday, January 3, 1904. If you want to be a geek, you can switch the setting: Options, Advanced, Calculate, Check or uncheck the box for 1994 date system. It just blows my mind that when you copy data between spreadsheets, Excel does not check and reconcile the date system. Also, the 1900 leap year error persists? Finally, I do not care what "zero" is. But, (negative) dates before zero are wrong or undefined? Give me a break! These are simple issues to fix. Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Karel surely -2 should be the 30 Dec 1899 and day 60 should be 01/03/1900 ? Regards P ----- Original Message ----- From: Karel Marais To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel Hi, Glad to report that -2 changed to dateformat on my openoffice calc gives a date of 28 December 1899 Day 60 also formats correctly to 28/02/1900 ...might be time to get some free software :-) Cheers, Karel Marais Marais x Thurnau Lloyd x Pienaar Bennett x Cloete Webber x Maskrey Kapp x Slabbert, Bestbier Du Toit --- On Fri, 24/6/11, Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> wrote: From: Keith Meintjes <umfundi@usa.net> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Dates in Excel To: "SA List" <SOUTH-AFRICA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, 24 June, 2011, 3:18 All, May I complain a little bit? I am amazed to find the limitations and errors in Excel's default date calculations. I will have to go back and check my spreadsheets for date calculations. 1. Day 1 (on the PC) and Day 0 (on the Mac) are four years apart. If you cut and paste dates from one platform to the other, they will differ by four years and one day. To check: Make a new spreadsheet, type 1 in a cell, and then format it as a date. If the result is Jan 1, 1900 you are on the default for a PC. If the result is Jan 2, 1904, you are on the default for a Mac. 2. 1900 was not a leap year. But, Excel preserves a bug in Lotus123 that it was. So, on a PC, any day calculation before March 1, 1900, (but after Jan 1, 1900) will be in error by one day. 3. Dates before Jan 1 1900 (on the PC) and before Jan 1 1904 (on the Mac) do not exist. On the PC (1900 system) they are undefined. On the Mac, they are a negative reflection of the future! Make a new spreadsheet, type -2 in a cell, and then format it as a date. On a PC you will get an infinite string of ####, on a Mac you will get -Sunday, January 3, 1904. If you want to be a geek, you can switch the setting: Options, Advanced, Calculate, Check or uncheck the box for 1994 date system. It just blows my mind that when you copy data between spreadsheets, Excel does not check and reconcile the date system. Also, the 1900 leap year error persists? Finally, I do not care what "zero" is. But, (negative) dates before zero are wrong or undefined? Give me a break! These are simple issues to fix. Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Delia, congratulations to you for all your hard work in compiling this wonderful historic information. How generous the compilers of African genealogy are, in supplying freely, information for families who are finding their roots. I shall wait patiently for information to appear for later years that will include, hopefully, one or two of my ancesters. Meanwhile, a very big thank you to you Delia and all those who assisted you, for making this list available to one and all. I'm sure there must be a lot of happy family genealogists on this list because they found their roots. Kind regards. April England UK

There are two simple solutions to this, and both make far more sense for a variety of reasons beyond the built-in limitations, than using any of the standardised date formats: 1. Enter dates as numbers, starting with the year, viz: 15000627 or 20110627 2. Use 3 columns for dates, entered as numbers, one each for: YYYY MM DD Delia Robertson On 2011/06/24 02:18 AM, Keith Meintjes wrote: > All, > > May I complain a little bit? I am amazed to find the limitations and errors > in > Excel's default date calculations. I will have to go back and check my > spreadsheets for date calculations. > > 1. Day 1 (on the PC) and Day 0 (on the Mac) are four years apart. If you cut > and paste dates from one platform to the other, they will differ by four > years > and one day. To check: Make a new spreadsheet, type 1 in a cell, and then > format it as a date. If the result is Jan 1, 1900 you are on the default for > a PC. If the result is Jan 2, 1904, you are on the default for a Mac. > > 2. 1900 was not a leap year. But, Excel preserves a bug in Lotus123 that it > was. So, on a PC, any day calculation before March 1, 1900, (but after Jan 1, > 1900) will be in error by one day. > > 3. Dates before Jan 1 1900 (on the PC) and before Jan 1 1904 (on the Mac) do > not exist. On the PC (1900 system) they are undefined. On the Mac, they are > a negative reflection of the future! > > Make a new spreadsheet, type -2 in a cell, and then format it as a date. On a > PC you will get an infinite string of ####, on a Mac you will get -Sunday, > January 3, 1904. > > If you want to be a geek, you can switch the setting: Options, Advanced, > Calculate, Check or uncheck the box for 1994 date system. > > It just blows my mind that when you copy data between spreadsheets, Excel > does > not check and reconcile the date system. Also, the 1900 leap year error > persists? > > Finally, I do not care what "zero" is. But, (negative) dates before zero are > wrong or undefined? > > Give me a break! These are simple issues to fix. > > Keith > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Hi, can anyone help me to find a lady by the name of Nel Marie MULLER who wrote a book on the MULLER family about 10 or more years ago. I believe that she could have come from Mossel Bay. Thanks Moyra Joyce Bedford

I should note there is now a second edition of this book. It is available at Protea Boekhuis, which has branches in Hatfield, Pretoria and in Stellenbosch. Keith ------ Original Message ------ Received: Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:39:09 AM EDT From: "Keith Meintjes" <umfundi@usa.net> To: "SA List" <SOUTH-AFRICA-L@rootsweb.com> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Voortrekker-Stamouers by Jan Visagie All, I noticed this for sale. I have no stake here. An absolute bargain, I believe. http://www.find-a-book.com/db/detail.php?booknr=364064932&source=addall Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

All, I noticed this for sale. I have no stake here. An absolute bargain, I believe. http://www.find-a-book.com/db/detail.php?booknr=364064932&source=addall Keith

-- Regards, Con Mercer