Date Ranges (between)

Add your enhancement requests to our ToDo list.
Post Reply
User avatar
Keith Wilson
Site Admin
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:12 pm

Date Ranges (between)

Post by Keith Wilson » Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:39 am

Originally posted by anthonydpaul

I know this has been asked at least a couple of times and that it is currently not supported, but it would be great to include the ability to add simple date ranges (dd-dd mmm yyyy, dd mmm-mmm yyyy, dd mmm yyyy-yyyy, or dd mmm yyyy - dd mmm yyyy) without having to put them all in the notes.

I haven't found a better Mac application yet, but won't be able to switch from FTM on PC without this, as I have too many records in this format and use ranges to identify which records need to be investigated further.

User avatar
Keith Wilson
Site Admin
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:12 pm

Date Ranges (between)

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:29 pm

In iFamily for Tiger you can enter About, Before and After dates but not Between dates.

I suggest that you enter an About date by prefixing the date with about, abt, c or circa

To indicate a date range such as Between 1925 and 1935 you should enter c 1930 for the date and then enter information in the Event Notes field to indicate the date range plus a reason why the date is imprecise.

When iFamily finds a Between date in a Gedcom file it will attempt to create an about date and will store the Gedcom record as is in (a) the event s Notes field plus (b) in a special field for the as-read Gedcom date field. There is a menu option called Events - Event Dates where these special as-read date fields can be displayed. This dialog includes some special functions for searching, inspecting and converting date fields, mainly for dates that do not conform to the Gedcom 5.5 specification.

Keith

User avatar
Keith Wilson
Site Admin
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:12 pm

Date Ranges (between)

Post by Keith Wilson » Thu Feb 21, 2008 1:38 pm

Originally posted by NigelRichman

The main use I can think of for Between is when the B, M or D records are recorded in Quarters so you can only guess that the event is Between 1 Jan and 31 March of that year (etc).

Having said that, these are the recorded dates so you can only really say it was BEF the last day in the Quarter so:

Between 01 Jan 1900 and 31 Mar 1900 would resolve to BEF Apr 1900.

Not quite accurate when you get to later quarters but probably good enough with a note for the source.

How do others enter Quarters etc?

Nigel

User avatar
Keith Wilson
Site Admin
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:12 pm

Date Ranges (between)

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:58 am

You should enter a " between date" as an " about date" using the midpoint of the date range and then add something to the event's notes field to indicate the range and reason for the range. You can also add a ToDo to remind you to revisit this item of data.

The quickest way to clean up dates imported from a Gedcom file is to use menu option Events - Dates. If you sort the column for Gedcom Date you will notice that most of your " between dates" have already been converted to " about dates" . There are a few like " BET 27 AND 28 SEP 1663" that have been interpreted by iFamily in accordance with Gedcom 5.5 specification and are not what you might have expected. In this case the first date (27) will be interpreted as being a year. I suggest that you raise this as an issue with the application that generated the Gedcom file - it has generated an incorrect date format.

Keith

Post Reply