> I'll second the Aardvark's suggestions and add that if the information in
> the character field is entered as numerals in the order of year, month,
and
> day (preferably with some sort of standard separators to insure ease of
> reading), easy sorting in chronologic order is possible.
>
> Art Harris


However, I also find it useful to have a field in a database which is the
year in full.  Databases I have constructed have not been for museum
accessions, rather elaborate finding aids, but MS database programs don't
appear to have any way of dating prior to 1900 and sometimes I need to be
able to date things in the C19th!
Years in full, with the field as a number rather than a date, appear to
work well in conjunction with a separate date field - records can then be
sorted by year and then date resulting in good date order.

Elizabeth Waters Heinrichs
HISTORY MATTERS
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