A system and method for resolving ambiguities in date values associated with an attribute in a memory of the computer system. If a first text string conforms to one or more date formats, a confidence value is assigned for each of the date formats for the first text string based on the amount of specificity with which the first text string conforms to each date format. Similarly, if a second text string conforms to one or more date formats, a confidence value is assigned for each of the date formats for the second text string based on the amount of specificity with which the second text string conforms to each date format. The date format with the highest confidence value for the first text string and the date format with the highest confidence value for the second text string are merged to obtain a date value for the attribute.