What is the proper entry for the date of an event when that date is unknown. I was thinking leaving it blank would indicate that the event could have been forgotten. Do I just enter a “?” mark or enter “unknown”, or leave the slot blank?
There is no “proper” way. You need to figure out what makes sense for you. Once you do, be consistent with it. In my case, I leave it blank unless I can figure at least an approximate date. For example if I know the date of someone’s high school graduation but not their birthdate, I would subtract 18 years from the graduation and enter their birth as circa that date.
I know some people graduate before 18 and some after, so I know to look at the derived date +/- a year when I start digging for the birth.
If I can’t come up with an approximate date, then I leave it blank.
My 2 cents says it would depend on the Event.
If a couple are married in one census year but one is listed in a later as “widowed” then the death date for deceased is “bef yyyy”.
Same goes for single then later married.
Tricker is if only know something happened (arrested, had surgery, member of an organization) then leave the date blank and put in notes what you know. It will show up on the Edit screen after all the ones with dates.
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Small problem though…widowed was often a code word for divorced!
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Not a problem you would look for any records for the spouse to determine if alive or not.
I leave unknown date blank. For example, I leave the Burial date blank if I don’t have a death certificate or an obituary or something like that which gives an actual burial date.
That being said, I often need to specify a sort date while still leaving the main date field blank in order to make sure the fact is in the correct order.
I much appreciate all of the input. I have decided to leave the line blank, but make a note as unknown.
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I basically agree with you on just search for a death BUT that doesn’t always work as I’ve had several that I thought had died–couldn’t find any death info and then 2 years later I found them by accident alive and well 30 years after they supposedly died living in another state with their child ( one had remarried and one had not)…
I said to see if they Alive or Not - lucky you not to give up looking
I use “est” before any date I have calculated or estimated it myself. That’s because you typically find dates with about or circa. I know anything with an “est” date is something I added. Then I add a source as myself and what the date was based on. I can find anyone with and “est” date using the filter: Event - Fact Type: Any Fact type, Date - contains - est.
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I am thankful for all the great advice. I was concerned that if I point anything other than a number that it may create a problem when printing records. I can see that it will not. This RM is a pretty awesome piece of software.
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btw, the full list of supported date formats is here ==> Date formats
I use:-
Abt.
for dates that are either unknown or approximate.
That’s a good idea - thank you.
As for printing records, it is really flexible-- if you have no date of birth–it will say Alice was born ( date unknown)-- if you have no birth info BUT have other facts, it won’t mention anything abt her being born— same for death, if you have no death info or a death fact–so it comes down to how ever you want to deal with no info on dates
RootsMagic has built in date formats, which address many ways to display dates, so they are recognized by the program to show/sort the events in a chronological order.
I don’t want to list them all in this comment, there are many. It is helpful to read the “help” section on Working with Facts , then date formats. (see link at end of my comment).
The ones I most commonly use are:
bef or before, between, aft or after, estimated, about, or.
They have even thought of two or more events on the same date, and how to put them in chronological order, like when someone has a death date, funeral date and burial date on the same day. Those items can be sorted chronologically in RootsMagic11 by the sort date field.
See the help for date formats at this link: