yogi_Count Instances Of Years Listed In Range Consisting Of Specified Starting And Ending Column

                                         Google Spreadsheet   Post  #1620
Yogi Anand, D.Eng, P.E.      ANAND Enterprises LLC -- Rochester Hills MI     www.energyefficientbuild.com.   Apr-26-2014
post by Prequel: (https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/docs/spreadsheets/zirdsPTg2tE)
Countif to get multiple results from same range
2010
2011
2010
2011
2012

Think about I want to count all of the years here.

2010 = 2
2011 = 2
2012 = 1

I don't want to combine the result, I want them to be seen seperately, just like above.

Multiple COUNTIFs can do that BUT if I want to add more cells I have to change ALL ranges of all COUNTIFs. I want to change the range just once for all formulas for each time I add more entries and they are using the new range all together. I'm guessing the only way to do that is to have different COUNTIFs but have the range information from somewhere else. I'm not sure if it's possible to have one single formula to get multiple results, listed seperately. Oh, and, I have multiple columns, if that makes any difference. (I couldn't use a single countif formula for counting a single criteria in multiple columns, for example)

Note that the "s" here is for plural, I can't use "countifs", I don't use the new version of Google Docs.

Thanks in advance.
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in the following is a solution to a bit more generalized problem