How enter unknown date/month in 1921 on Access?

[John D]

I have a genealogical database and want to enter some people whose exact
dates of birth are unknown, e.g. someone born in 1921 whose date of birth or
month of birth is not known.

How to enter these.

 

[Rick Brandt]

I have a genealogical database and want to enter some people whose exact
dates of birth are unknown, e.g. someone born in 1921 whose date of
birth or month of birth is not known.

How to enter these.

You either enter a full date picking some arbitrary values for the day
and month or you do not use a date field. One possible solution is to
use three integer fields for day, month, and year thus allowing any piece
of data that you do have to be stored while leaving missing pieces as
nulls. That most closely models reality and that is usually what you
want.

 

[Allen Browne]

Another possibility is to use 1/1/1921, and add a yes/no field named (say)
IsBirthdateGuess, to indicate if it is the true date or an estimate.

 

[WJMALONEY]

John:

I would be very interested in seeing how you are using Access in your
genealogical work. I have fairly recently started archiving 2500 letters and
diaries from relativs dating back to 1860, going forward to 1965. I wonder if
Access would be more ideal than Word for cross referencing names, places,
dates, etc. Could you show me a link to your table? Any thoughts on this John?

 

[Michael Gramelspacher]

John:

I would be very interested in seeing how you are using Access in your
genealogical work. I have fairly recently started archiving 2500 letters and
diaries from relativs dating back to 1860, going forward to 1965. I wonder if
Access would be more ideal than Word for cross referencing names, places,
dates, etc. Could you show me a link to your table? Any thoughts on this John?

I use separate fields for day, month and year and then combine them into a date for reports.
See: http://www.psci.net/gramelsp/temp/naturalization.jpg

It uses this function to make date for display on form and report.

' update all date labels when browsing between records
Me.lblBirthDate.Caption = StringDate(BirthDay, BirthMonth, BirthYear, False)
Me.lblCourtDate.Caption = StringDate(CourtDay, CourtMonth, CourtYear, False)
Me.lblEmbarkDate.Caption = StringDate(EmbarkDay, EmbarkMonth, EmbarkYear, False)
Me.lblArrivalDate.Caption = StringDate(ArrivalDay, ArrivalMonth, ArrivalYear, False)

'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Function MonthString(intMonth As Integer) As String
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dim strAllMonths As String
Dim intItemLen As Integer

If intMonth > 0 Then
strAllMonths = "JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec"
intItemLen = 3
MonthString = Mid$(strAllMonths, intItemLen * (intMonth - 1) + 1, intItemLen)
End If
End Function

'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Function StringDate(intDay As Variant, _
intMonth As Variant, _
intYear As Variant, _
isBlank As Boolean) As String
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' converts an integer day, integer month, integer year into a
' string "dd mmm yyyy", ex: 13 Jun 1921.
' use:
' Me.lblBirthDate.Caption = StringDate(BirthDay, BirthMonth, BirthYear, False)
' must have at least the year
If Nz([intYear], 0) > 0 Then
StringDate = IIf((Nz([intDay], 0) = 0), "", Str(Nz([intDay])) & " ") & _
MonthString(Nz([intMonth], 0)) & Str(Nz([intYear], 0))
Else
' if integer year is null or 0 then return one of the
' these strings depending on whether isBlank is True or False
If isBlank = False Then
StringDate = "none"
Else
StringDate = ""
End If
End If

End Function