Excel doesn't support those old dates.

It only goes back to Jan 1, 1900.

You could enter your values (no longer dates!) as Text.
Either preformat the cells as Text or begin your entry with an apostrophe:
'1793/02/23

If you use yyyy/mm/dd, then your sorts will work ok.

On the other hand, John Walkenbach has an addin that may help you:
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/xdate.htm



ncprius wrote:

Running Office 2007. How can I get (or format) dates from the 1700s through
2010 to sort? It sorts dates ascendingly from the 1900 and 2000s just fine
but throws the 1700/1800 dates at the bottom and then not in any particular
order.

I've already tried formatting dates as almost every choice in the date
format window and I've tried typing dates as 1/23/1899, January 23, 1899,
etc. but nothing sorts correctly (ascending or descending).

Thanks for any help you can give me.

--

Dave Peterson