I believe the earliest date value that Excel would recognize as a date value
is 1/1/1900. Assuming the text date in A1 is in dd/mm/yyyy format, to
convert it to a date value in B1, you can use this formula:

=DATE(RIGHT(A1,4),MID(A1,4,2), LEFT(A1,2))



"David" wrote:

Hello,

I am not even sure if my Excel spreadsheet sees the column as a date. I have
genealogical information that I copied/pasted directly into an excel
spreadsheet.

The column with the dates show as dd/mm/yyy instead of mm/dd/yyyy.
- I am lookin gfor the easiest way to make it a recognizable date column
instead of retyping 18/01/1765 over to 01/18/1765, etc. I have over 450
listing and any help to make Excel recognize it as a date and then reformat
it into a useable date to sort with would be helpful.

Thank You.
David