Saturday, April 25, 2009

Saturday Night Genealogy with Randy Seaver


This Saturday I have time to indulge in the latest of Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here's the challenge: 1) Open your genealogy software program and search for a "Date Calculator." You could go exploring in your Tools or Options menu, or you could use the Help menu to find it.2) Open the "Date Calculator" and put in a death date for one of your ancestors and put in an age at death (use the one you know, or just make one up - we're just testing this feature today). Do the same thing by entering a birth date and a death date in the "Date Calculator" and see how old someone was when they died.3) Tell us what software you're using and where you found the "Date Calculator." Tell us the information you found out from using the "Date Calculator."

I have never tried the date calculator and didn’t know that my Family Tree Maker program had one. The date calculator is found in the Tools section. I also have not kept up with the more recent FTM programs and was surprised when I realized that mine is Family Tree Maker 2005. Probably time to update!

The first family member I tried was my paternal gggg grandmother,
Elizabeth McElroy, from this past week’s Tombstone Tuesday. I put in her death date of January 8, 1848 and the tombstone reading that her age at death was 89 years and 11 months. The date calculator told me that her date of birth was Wednesday, February 08, 1758 and that the actual day of her death was Saturday. Knowing the day of the week is fun.


Next I tried my paternal ggg grandmother and daughter of Elizabeth McElroy, Sarah McElroy VanGilder. Her date of birth from the tombstone listing is June 11, 1797 and the date of death February 08, 1881. The date calculator added that she was born on a Sunday and died on a Tuesday and her age at death was 83 years 7 months 28 days.

THANKS RANDY for showing me this valuable tool on my FTM that I didn’t even know I had!

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