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