Quick Tip: Standard Date Format

MM-DD-YY (7-30-20) vs DD-MM-YY (30-07-20)

I thought this was worth mentioning since some of you that will be reading my Blog may not know why the DATE format is not in the U.S. format of MM-DD-YY (7-30-20) that we are used to.  

In the genealogy world, using a standardized format eliminates some of the guess work for people who look at the data.

People in many other countries tend to put the day of the month first, as in DD-MM-YY (30-07-20). You will see this in the older documents. Using letters for the month eliminates confusion. And it’s essential to use all four years of the date because we genealogists are working in multiple centuries.

So with this mind, my goal is to use the standardized format in my data.  Soon I hope it becomes second nature when writing.