Excel doesn't support dates before Jan 1 1900.

If you try to enter a date before Jan 1 1900 Excel evaluates it as a TEXT
string, not a date.

See if this helps:

http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php...re_1900_dates/

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Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"rew3791" wrote in message
...
I'm using Excel 2007. I'm trying to calculate the Age at Death when given
the birth and death years.

I tried using the =DATEDIF function, but 2007 doesn't seem to support it.
Then I tried =YEAR(C3)-YEAR(D3), and you can see the results below. I
think
it's because I entered the years as text, but when I tried to format the
columns for the date, I couldn't find a format that would let me list ONLY
the year. I had to have a month and/or day too. I'm not an excel expert,
so
I'm probably missing something fundamental. Any help?

Surname Given Name Birth Yr Death Yr Age at Death
Adam Catharine 1859 5
Adam Joseph 1806 1876 -1
Adam Josephine 1856 1942

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Rachel