BMD date entry

Terry Levett · Post by **Terry Levett** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:35 pm

Please excuse me if this topic has been covered before, shoot me down in flames and direct me to the place.
We all use BMD&#39s, sometimes the only source of dates available without buying certificates, albeit only to the nearest quarter. It has always concerned me that it is difficult to record these dates to my satisfaction, my preference is to record it thus:- 1qt. ; 2qt. etc., no ambiguity&#39s and quite straightforward but in most programs (including iFamily) this is not possible, changing to a default date. To get round this I enter quarter months with a lowercase first letter as in mar., june., sep. & dec. to distinguish it from a known event month. This only seems to work on Ancestry, I&#39m afraid all other programs revert to a capital letter as soon as one leaves that field.
Does this bug other genealogists as it does me? if so let me know and maybe we can persuade some changes if only in iFamily

NigelRichman · Post by **NigelRichman** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:25 pm

HI,

I tend to use the before option and enter the last day of the quarter.

For example if the record is in q2 of 1890 I enter bef 30 Jun 1890.

This could be any time before that date but it is the best information to hand.

As the record is the Quarter in which the birth is registered it may be that the person was born (died or married) in the later days of the previous quarter so it is hard to really be better than the format above.

At least, that is the way I do it.

Nigel