Hi Craig,
Excel does not recognize any date before 1900, but VBA does.
Keep those dates as text.

You can use John Walkenbach's Extended Dates routines
to work with them arithmetically, but be aware that there are
problems as calendar changes -- I believe that is at least
mentioned on his site.
Extended Date Functions Add-In
http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/xdate.htm

More information on Date and Time
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/datetime.htm
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HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"Craig & Co." wrote in message news:42151ca3$0$57503
I have a table of immigration ships that have arrived in Australian shores.
Some....okay most.....of the ships arrived before 1900.