There are several ways to work with dates
have you tried to format the column ( where your problem lies) to General

FORMAT Cells Number General


"pky8484" wrote:

I am a parttime historian who is presently working on a profile of people
who have be come casaulities during the WWII, Korea and Vietnam. At present
I analayzing the rate that cetain medal are geing awarded. Such as the
Medal of Honor and Siliver Star.

My problem is this. I have managed to locate a spreadsheet that has hall of
the date I kneed, It is 8 megs in size and has over 50,000 names. Some of
the date is in text, most notablty the Dates of birth. How do I convert
those date into to a number for that I can used it for various analaysis.

Attached is a small sample of the File I have.
The first colomum it the date in which the person became a casuality.
The second is the thier Date of birth.
In the third colomu is the numerical value I would like to be able figure
out.
I have tried formating, even tried the following commanding.
=year(cell reference"

This works sometimes but I eventenly get a error vallue command.

Is thiere a way to convert the DOB information Into a value so that it is
mathatical?


I would appreciate and assistance or reference to sites that may be of help.

Thank you for you time and efforts in this matter.

Signed

B.K. McKlusky IV

File is attached to show example of broblem