title: Excel formula to return earliest date in a range & ignores blank cells
body: <p>I was able to use the MIN function to return earliest date in a range, but I also found that it returns a default excel date (12/30/1899) when the range of cells are empty.  Is there another way to avoid the default date for blank cells and return blank? </p>
  
  <p>For example:
  Range 1 
  7/1/2014
  7/2/2014
  6/30/2014</p>
  
  <p>Result = 6/30/2014</p>
  
  <p>Range 2 (cells are blank because they're still waiting for input)
  ...
  ...
  ...</p>
  
  <p>Result = 12/30/1899</p>