L. J. Cook wrote:
 
> In all of the excitement about Y2K, a fundamental (and related) problem
> with most database software seems to have been overlooked.  That is the
> inability of common programs such as Excel and Works to handle dates before
> 1900, which limits their utility to historians and historical
> archaeologists.  It is possible to enter the year as a numerical field, but
> this separates it from the month/day, and causes sorting problems.  It also
> reqiures additional fields, which is cumbersome in preparing title chains...
 
Lauren:
Entering dates in Excel/Lotus as numbers with four places after the
decimal allows you to enter the entire date in one field; e.g., July 4,
1776 becomes 1776.0704. That should sort in ascending and descending
order without any problems. We use a 15-month calender to accommodate
Old Style dates; i.e., those before 1752. In this system, January would
be .01 New Style and .13 Old Style. March Old Style is .15.
 
To determine the day of the week from a numeric date, you might use the
calculator provided at the following URL out of Albion College,
Michigan.
http://www.albion.edu/fac/engl/calendar/weekday.htm
 
Jim Gibb
The Lost Towns of Anne Arundel Project
Annapolis, MD  USA