Using VLOOKUP command

Here is my situation.

Column A- Last (Name) - Contains about 1000
Column B- First (Name) - Contains about 1000
Column C- Date of Birth - Contains about 1000
Column E- Last, First - Contains about 200 and is a subset of column A and B

Column D- I created this to be =A2&","&" "&B2 so that it merges columns A and B to be in the format of coumn E

Column F- =VLOOKUP(E2,D2:D1000,3,FALSE)

I did this to try to pull out the DOB's for my subset but am getting a "#REF!" error which makes sense because the actual data in column D is a formula, not "Last, First" data.

I tried just doing "text to column" for column E and then using the VLOOKUP command based on the new Last name only column that was created from the "text to column" and column A.

This worked, however, if there was more than one person with the same last name, it kicks out the DOB for the first match it comes to, i.e. not taking into account the first name and giving me an incorrect DOB.

Does anyone know how I can use the VLOOKUP command to do this?

Or is there another option? A better, easier method?

Thanks!!!

Here is a screen shot of the first bit of my data. Only provided some because I had to change names, dates, etc for privacy reasons.

http://livelesson.connectionsacademy.com/p32817444/


Cell D2 = A2&","&" "&B2
Cell F2 =VLOOKUP(E2,D2:D1000,3,FALSE)

Column A contains around 1000 Last Names
Column B contains around 1000 First Names
Column C contains around 1000 Date of Births
Column D is a column that I made using the above formula
Column E contains around 200 Last, First Names
Column F is a column that I made trying to pull the DOB's for Column E names from Column C.

Sorry, I am new to this site, how exactly do you attach files? Thanks

Here is the example

Well that seemed to work (see attachment) however the numbers that it produced do not relate to actual DOB's that I can tell. If they do, I'm not seeing how.

Also, eventually I'd like to put the DOB's in order that they would appear throughout the calendar year regardless of year of birth.

So eventually I would like them to appear as follows

Name1 ...... 1/5/1994
Name2 ...... 1/7/1992
Name3 ...... 1/9/1995
Name4...... 1/11/1993
Name5 ...... 1/15/1991
Name6 ...... 1/19/1994

etc

or more generally

Name1 ...... 1/5
Name2 ...... 1/7
Name3 ...... 1/9
Name4 ...... 1/11
Name5 ...... 1/15
Name6 ...... 1/19

Ok I figured out how to format them so they appear in the date format, but when I sort by column F they are showing up from youngest to oldest .... which is not exactly how I want to sort.

I would like to sort by birthdate (month and day) regardless of year of birth.

So eventually I would like them to appear as follows

Name1 ...... 1/5/1994
Name2 ...... 1/7/1992
Name3 ...... 1/9/1995
Name4...... 1/11/1993
Name5 ...... 1/15/1991
Name6 ...... 1/19/1994

Right now what I have is

Name5 ...... 1/15/1991
Name2 ...... 1/7/1992
Name4...... 1/11/1993
Name1 ...... 1/5/1994
Name6 ...... 1/19/1994
Name3 ...... 1/9/1995

Figured it out with the following code

=MONTH(F2)*100+DAY(F2)

And then sort by that column.

NBVC Thanks for all your help!

Now how to I mark it as resolved?