How Dates Are Displayed
How to Change the Date Format
Date Calculator and Date Expressions
—
Date "format" refers to the way that date elements are arranged or expressed. When you enter a date, Reunion will accept a variety of date formats, but will convert whatever you type into the date format specified in the Date Settings window. Thus, the format used to enter dates is independent of the format used to display dates.
Reunion converts your date entry (what you type into a date field) when you "exit" a date field by pressing the Tab, Return or Enter keys, clicking
, clicking any button, or choosing an item in the navbar or sidebar.To change the format used for displaying dates...
Date format settings are global — they apply to all your family files.
Reunion lets you choose...
When you change the format used for displaying dates, all previously entered dates will be displayed in the new format (except custom dates).
There are 21 ways to display a date (excluding leading zeros):
|
|
If you don't know a date, you can leave a date field empty, or you can approximate by typing a date modifier such as:
? | Jan 1850 | 1850 | approx 1755 |
aft 1949 | circa 1800 | ca 1901 | Jan |
bef 1912 | ? 1850 | ? Jan 1850 | 1 Jan |
c 1912 | c. 1850 | c1850 | c.1850 |
To accelerate the process of entering dates, remember this rule: Reunion only cares about the first three letters of any word you type into a date field — with the single exception of the word "marriage" (where it looks at the first four letters). Thus, any other word in Reunion's date vocabulary can be entered using only its first three letters.
Literal Prefixes: These date modifier words appear in date fields as prefixes to dates. For example: Before, After, Approx, About, or Circa. They are sometimes used to estimate a date. Reunion will convert your literal prefix into the long or abbreviated form based on the abbreviation setting for months in the Date Settings window (the Format section). Click here to learn how date modifier words affect date sorting and calculations.
Literal Suffixes: These include BC and AD. If AD is entered, it will be omitted. No punctuation is allowed in suffixes. The early years are explained here.
Delimiters: Reunion will accept a variety of date element delimiters (or separators), but will convert the delimiters you type into the delimiter selected in the Date Settings window (the Format section). Supported delimiters include space, slash, dash, period, and comma.
Questionable Modifier: A question mark (?) can be used to indicate an unknown or questionable date entry. A question mark can be entered anywhere between date elements, but will be moved to the beginning of the date entry, if any.
If the year element of a date entry is in the last 100 years, you can simply type the last two digits of the year. For example...
To enter this date... |
You can type this... |
---|---|
September 12, 1958 |
9 12 58 |
September 12, 1958 |
sep 12 58 |
January 15, 2002 |
1 15 02 |
January 15, 2002 |
jan 15 02 |
To change the default century...
You might want to change this to an earlier century if, for example, you're transcribing lots of records from the 1700's.
If the default century is set to Current, Reunion will use the last 100 years (ending this year) as the default. ("Current" does not mean the current calendar century.)
Reunion will accept upper, lower, or mixed case for any word in its date vocabulary, but will convert the letters you type into the case specified in the Format section of the Date Settings window.
The exceptions are date modifiers (such as before, after, and circa) which remain lowercase unless the Format section of the Date Settings window).
button is checked (in theReunion understands leap years. If you try to enter a date of February 29 in a non-leap year, such as "29 Feb 1885" Reunion will consider the entry a custom date since 1885 was not a leap year.
To determine a leap year, follow this winding rule: if the year is evenly divisible by 4, it's a leap year, except when the year is evenly divisible by 100, in which case it's not a leap year. However, if a year is evenly divisible by 400, it is a leap year.
If the year element of a date entry is between 1 and 9, it must be preceded by two zeros (for example, 001).
If the year is between 10 and 31, it must be preceded by at least one zero (for example, 025 or 0025).
The earliest recordable year in Reunion is 28 Aug 3760 BC (or 1 Tishri 0002, which is one Hebrew year after the time of creation, per the Hebrew calendar). The latest recordable year is 7,000 (AD).
There is no such year as 0 AD or 0 BC. The calendar moves from 1 BC to 1 AD.
Reunion will think you're trying to enter a custom date if you use an uppercase "i" or lowercase "L" as a substitute for the number "1" in a date entry. They may look similar on the screen, but to the computer, they're worlds apart. Likewise, the uppercase letter "o" should never be used in place of a zero (0).
A date entry of "1.5.90" will be interpreted as the 5th of January unless the "short" date format in your System Settings is set to the Day/Month/Year format. If this date format is selected, then a date entry of "1.5.90" would be interpreted as the 1st of May. (The short date setting is accessed here: Apple Menu > System Settings > Language & Region > Advanced > Dates > Short.)
The following table illustrates this concept:
System Settings (International/Formats) |
Date entry |
Reunion interprets as... |
---|---|---|
3.23.95 (Month/Day/Year) |
1.5.90 |
Jan 5th |
23.3.95 (Day/Month/Year) |
1.5.90 |
May 1st |
The System Settings "short" date setting only applies to the first two date orderings: “January 28, 1980” and “28 January 1980” and the ISO date “1980-01-28.” Selecting one of the other two formats (“1/28/1980” or “28/1/1980”) in Reunion overrides the System Settings.
After entering dates, you can display them in any format.
For date entries, Reunion has a finite vocabulary. In other words, you can enter just about anything in a date field, but Reunion only comprehends certain types of date entries. When you type a date entry that Reunion doesn't comprehend as a "date," Reunion calls this a custom date. Reunion can save your custom date and use the custom date in charts, reports, and lists.
Custom dates are often used to express a date range, an estimated date, or nebulous date information. Examples appear below...
Summer of 69 |
1888/9 |
SeeNotes |
1888/89 |
1q 1990 |
1888/1889 |
Between 1881 and 1882 |
Holocaust |
Sep-Nov 1788 |
Sep..Nov 1788 |
Sep/Nov 1788 |
Sep^Nov 1788 |
Sep*Nov 1788 |
Sep_Nov 1788 |
If you enter a date that Reunion doesn't understand, the Custom Date window will appear.
If you simply made a mistake and need to re-enter a date (for example, if you misspelled a month name or made some other typographical error), click
and re-enter the date.If your entry appears as you want it to appear and you want Reunion to remember your date entry, even though Reunion can't understand the entry as a "date," then...
If possible, try to enter a "valid" date entry, rather than a custom date. Here are a few reasons for this recommendation...
If you enter and save a custom date, and later decide that you want to change the "sort date" for the custom date, do this...
The Sort Date window will appear.
This feature only applies to custom dates. It will not work if the custom date entry has been changed but you haven't "exited" the field.
Searching for Custom Date Entries
To search for events that have custom dates...
Custom Dates and Mondays
Weekdays may be entered as a custom date, except the word "Monday." When Reunion sees this word, its capability to recognize abbreviations causes the word "Monday" to be interpreted as the word "Month" for purposes of date calculations. And thus the word "Monday" will be stripped.
For example, if you enter a date such as "Monday March 19 2012" the word "Monday" will be omitted. If you want the word "Monday" in a custom date entry, then enclose the word "Monday" with brackets or quotation marks, such as: 26 Mar 2012 [Monday]
Note: | This material could be considered "advanced." For most of the work you do in Reunion, it isn't necessary to know how Reunion's date calculator functions. Just remember, when you find a date expressed something like "86 years 5 months 6 days," the date calculator will be waiting to assist you. |
---|
In addition to the variety of recognized date formats, Reunion can calculate a date based on a date expression. Dates can be expressed almost as they would be spoken and can refer to another date as a point of reference.
The date used as a point of reference can be an existing date in a different field (such as the entry in the Birth Date field in the example below) or a date constant (such as today, yesterday, or now).
To express a date, type an entry using this format: TimePeriod Operator Variable/Constant/Date
TimePeriod
|
Operator
|
Variable | Constant | Date
|
---|---|---|
day
week month year TimePeriod is a measurement of time that must be preceded by a number, for example "14 years." |
before after from ago old |
Variables
birth (value of Birth Date field) marriage (value of Marriage Date field) death (value of Death Date field) burial (value of Burial Date field) Constants Dates |
Like normal date entries, date expressions are converted when you "exit" a date field by pressing the Tab, Return or Enter keys, clicking
, clicking any button, or choosing an item in the navbar or sidebar.The words "ago" and "old" may be used in date expressions. Ago is used in reference to today's date if no other date is specified. Old is used in reference to a birth date. All date fields support these adjectives...
TimePeriod |
Adjective |
Variable| Constant| Date |
---|---|---|
2 weeks |
ago |
|
2 weeks |
ago |
yesterday |
34 years |
old |
|
66 years 5 months 1 week 1 day |
old |
Regardless of the time direction — whether expressing a date before or after another date — date expressions are always interpreted in this order: Years > Months > Days. As a result, you may get different results when you attempt to express the relationship between two different dates using the same number of years, months, and days but moving in opposite directions in time.
For example, you may wind up with different results if you attempt to...
The diagram below illustrates that, when using opposite time direction to reference another date, two different date expressions are necessary to describe one date (April 27) in relation to another date (June 1). Thus it's sometimes impossible to describe two different dates (April 27 and June 1) using the same number of months and days in opposite directions.