Many thanks for responding. I should say my post was prompted by a recent software change. For some years now I have used Legacy and Legacy recognizes Mar Q 1890 as a date and I have been happily using that format (knowing about the inaccuracy). Recently I purchased Family Tree Maker 2012 (or in my mind a 6-month subscription to Ancestry with FTM 2012 thrown in) and liked certain aspects of it, particularly the source, places and media management. So I decided to change and that is when I discovered that FTM did not regard Mar Q 1890 as a date. I modified the GEDCOM transfer file to change Mar Q to Jan-Mar and FTM converted these to between dates and I don't like the format. I think that I may give Abt (or Bef) a try or go back to Legacy.