Approximate (Circa) Dates?

[Wolf]

For a genealogy/family tree database some dates are
approximate. For example: my birthday is exact (January 1,
1970) and my ancestor's is not (just 1760). Some
are "Before 1600" or "After 1433", some still are
just "around 1830". Some just have month and year (Feb
1865).

How would I create fields (or a field) to hold this?
Setting it as straight string won't allow me to sort or
search via range.

Thanks a ton

 

[Rick B]

I would make three separate fields. One for Month, One for Date, and one
For year. Don't format them as dates. You could always string them
together to do date math.

If approximate, maybe check a box?

There are several boxed packages out there. You might look at some websites
and see if you can get a demo copy or view screens on their webpages to see
how they handle it.

Rick B


For a genealogy/family tree database some dates are
approximate. For example: my birthday is exact (January 1,
1970) and my ancestor's is not (just 1760). Some
are "Before 1600" or "After 1433", some still are
just "around 1830". Some just have month and year (Feb
1865).

How would I create fields (or a field) to hold this?
Setting it as straight string won't allow me to sort or
search via range.

Thanks a ton

 

[Armen Stein]

I would make three separate fields. One for Month, One for Date, and one
For year. Don't format them as dates. You could always string them
together to do date math.

If approximate, maybe check a box?

There are several boxed packages out there. You might look at some websites
and see if you can get a demo copy or view screens on their webpages to see
how they handle it.

Rick B


For a genealogy/family tree database some dates are
approximate. For example: my birthday is exact (January 1,
1970) and my ancestor's is not (just 1760). Some
are "Before 1600" or "After 1433", some still are
just "around 1830". Some just have month and year (Feb
1865).

How would I create fields (or a field) to hold this?
Setting it as straight string won't allow me to sort or
search via range.

Thanks a ton

Or, you could still use just one date field. In a separate field, store
a value indicating to use Full Date, Year and Month, or Year Only. On a
form, these could be set using radio buttons. Then, when you display
the date, you can use the appropriate date format to show the desired
portion. An advantage to this is that you can still do all the date
math you want on the original date field without any further
calculation, and any dates you do enter are automatically validated by
Access.

We use a similar technique when we want to show Month and Day without
Year (e.g. for birthdays).

Hope this helps,

--
Armen Stein
Access 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764559036/jstreettech-20
J Street Technology, Inc.
Armen _@_ JStreetTech _._ com