How to Write Dates for Your Genealogical Records

There can be confusion regarding how to write dates for your genealogical records.  And I believe that confusion is caused by where you grew up, where and how you were educated and if you were in the military. 

Dates are extremely important in genealogy as sometimes a year is the only information we've got on an ancestor.  I am always reluctant to write down a specific date unless I am absolutely positive in it's accuracy.  And as I progress with my family history, I try to think about the body of my work when I'm dead and gone -- how it will be regarded.  I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has spent a tremendous amount of time straightening out our family's misinformation, half facts, coupled with blase attitudes towards fact and then we have down right lies.  When our families were creating records, I don't think they realized the importance, so it's hard to blame them, but as students of genealogy, we do know and therefore should always demand accuracy from ourselves.

If you are a new genealogist, there is a whole set of skills that you will be developing.  And so here is my tip of the day for you...

I consider the Church of the Later Day Saints to pretty much set the standard for collecting genealogical data and they have contributed a lot to the education of young genealogists.  They suggest that you write your dates military style.  That means double digit day, followed by the month, followed by four digit year.

                 Example:  09 April 1871 

Personally, I like to see a double digit day.  That shows me that whoever was recording the information absolutely intended that particular date, in this example the 9th day of April.  Not the 19th day or the 29th day, but the 9th day.  As a genealogist you'll learn to question every piece of information that you come across.  

In my house -- since my husband was in the military but also because he is stubborn as a mule, we use a three letter abbreviation for the months:

                 Example:    January = JAN
                                February = FEB
                                    March = MAR
                                       April = APR
                                        May = MAY
                                        June = JUN
                                         July = JUL
                                    August = AUG
                              September = SEP
                                  October = OCT
                               November = NOV
                               December = DEC

Now give it some thought.  Once you decide on how you're going to write the dates for your genealogical records, stick with it.

I have spent a lot of time indexing records for Ancestry and Family Search and it makes me absolutely nuts to try to decipher bad handwriting.  If the sloppiness comes in the name, many times you can tell what that name is, but in dates, you don't get that luxury.  There are only 10 possible digits, but I've seen 7s that look like 9s, 5s that look like 2s, 3s that look like 8s.  What I am asking is that you try really hard, to write you numbers beautifully.  Write them like you were in 5th grade and actually getting a grade in handwriting.  It will make your own records so much easier to read, but also who ever picks up where you left off.