Dave Dalton

The ongoing controversy about a prominent American claiming to be a Native American and revelations through a recent private DNA test that she might be 1/64 to 1/1024 American Indian reignited my interest in doing some research on just what my Native American makeup is. My mother's side is mostly French Acadian and I have accurate records dating back to the early 1600s in Acadia. I quickly found my five Mi'kmaq Indian g-grandmothers and determined that I am 9/2048 Indian on my mother's side. But the problem is that this number comes from a single run from my mother up the tree to each g-grandmother, and she is related to many of the same Acadian ancestors through more than one connection. My question is whether TMG has support to easily find multiple connections to a single ancestor. For example, if a certain 12th generation Mi'kmaq g-grandmother is related through a single line, then I am 1/2048 Indian through that single line. But if another line also finds this same ancestor 12th generation up, the fraction now becomes 1/1024. Any ideas about how to get to this information quickly and easily? It doesn't appear that any of the TMG report formats support this. Are there any outside programs that I could, for example, dump a GEDCOM file into and get to this? Thanks, Dave

Well, that should have been easy, but wasn't. Showing all occurrences of a person within the Descendant Indented Report is enabled simply by checking the "Repeat Duplicate Lines" in the Miscellaneous tab in Report Options. So that report does indeed allow me to quickly get to all of the connections from me to a particular ancestor. I found six different connections to one of my Mi'kmaq g-grandmothers! Still to find additional connections to four others. Thanks again. Dave Dalton

Perhaps I wasn't clear on this request, and my apologies for that. My records have nothing to do with DNA, but are the result of finding my ancestors the traditional way. Doris, on your suggestion I did generate a descendant indented chart on an ancestor that I know is related through multiple connections and did find my maternal grandfather in three places in that MS Word report, connected by three different ancestors. But both my mother and I were listed under him only once. I did not limit the number of generations, so I would think that I would be below my grandfather in that chart in each case. (I had run that report in the past and had looked only for replications of my name, with no success.) If someone has an explanation for this, please let me know. I will investigate it otherwise.

Thanks, Michael. I updated the project this AM and everything seems to be working well. Dave

Michael, thanks for the clarification. Yes, the trial version that I downloaded after the failed update to 8.08 is indeed at 8.08 (I had to re-register after installing the trial version). So if I read you right, my problem is not an older pre-8.0 project database, but simply that TMG wants to upgrade the project to properly support the enhancements to the roles functions. Please confirm, and I will go ahead and update the project when I open TMG again. Now if Wholly Genes would just fix these various update problems I've suffered over the last several years... Dave

I just encountered the same problem. I don't get to TMG on a regular basis, but do several weeks of marathon sessions about twice a year, during the dog days of summer and again in January/February. So when I went to TMG this morning to start my summer session, I let it update to 8.08, and lost everything. I downloaded the trial version and got it going again, but when I tried to open my main project, it told me that it has to update the project to the latest level, just like when I initially installed TMG 8.0 last year. Thinking that it must have been going to an old, pre-8 database, I refused the update (cancelled). It then set up my normal environment and opened my main database as usual, without any additional action on my part, and without conversion. My concern is that I may be using an older database, so I produced a report on last edit date, and found that it was in January. I believe that I have added some updates to the database since then, but can't be sure. I back up nightly, but also swap my backup drives to an offsite location, about 30 miles away, about once every 60 days, and my last swap was done in early June, which means my offsite copy would contain any TMG updates/edits from about early April through early June. I really don't have the time or ambition to pick up the offsite copy today, and hesitate to update the database until I know for sure. So what's going on with this effort by 8.08 to update my database? I cannot find another database on my desktop with a .PJC extension, and keep my TMG databases in a data location of my own choosing along with all my other important data (I've always refused to let Microsoft (currently Windows 7) control where my data is kept, since it is often difficult to find, buried under many folders and pseudo folders, when using their approach). Did TMJ 8.08 default to some other folder and perhaps a new file type for the database? I had a problem of a similar nature, fixed late last year with help from the kind members of this group. See the thread 'TMG V8 opens with "The file **** does not appear to be a valid PJC file!"'in this forum. Just a few minutes ago I restored the last backp of the PJC file for this project (updated in March), with no change in this behavior. I'm not proceeding with any more updates until I understand this problem, so please post your suggestions as quickly as possible. Thanks, Dave Dalton

I installed TMG V8 Gold, upgrading from V7 Gold, a few months ago and this message just started showing up in the last couple of weeks. After I click the "OK" button TMG will either 1) disappear at which time when I restart it it properly reloads my family database file with no apparent problems or 2) load the file without first disappearing. I find this problem annoying and somewhat unsettling but haven't been able to find a good description of just how to fix it. I am running XP Pro SP3 and, as I always do with all my data (when I installed TMG V8, if I remember correctly ), relocated the entire TMG V8 Project folder, all the subfolders, and all the files to a Data folder off of my root C. The Preferences>>Options>>Current Project Options>>Advanced File locations all point to this location, although when I checked this morning I found that they all pointed to the default "Documents and Settings" location. I changed them again to my Data folder locations, but it still reacts the same way when I open it. How do I fix this problem? Thanks, Dave

Jim, that did it, very simply. My family .pjc file was 146 lines, the sample is 180, restoring a backup made a few days or so before I made any recent significant updates (provided by last edited dates from the report setup in my above post) yielded a family .pjc file of 196 lines. I replaced the "damaged" .pjc file with the restored version and everything now is back to normal. Thanks for your assistance. Dave

Michael, that should work (I knew about this once and used it, but...). I set up a people report to include and sort on the last edited date, with a "last edited date" ">comes after" and it will at least show me what has changed since that date, enough to jog my memory and for me to pull out the hard copy sources of these updates so I can do them again. It probably would not be useful for anything that was last edited more than a couple months ago, but for my purposes it is just what I need. That is, as long as the database is accessible before I need to restore it. Thanks much, Dave

Thanks. I'll wait for Jim's counsel. In the meantime, hopefully there a positive answer to my second question: Is there some way I can configure a report to give me a list of project updates made over a specified time range?. That capability would be handy for a lot of reasons, but I suppose it would rely on Foxpro time-stamping and logging changes to the database. Dave

Virginia and Jim, Thanks for the quick responses and helpful replies. I couldn't find any obvious problems with the .pjc file or any others such as the .ini file. So I will try a few point-in-time restores of the entire project folder (my backup program takes a backup every night of anything changed and I can go back as far as I have backups to do a restore). I will start recently at about when I believe the problem started and go back as far as I need to to get a good copy. But I have made a number of updates in the last several weeks that will be lost if I can't capture just what those updates were. So two questions: 1. Should I restore anything other than the project, such as documents and settings files like the .ini files and others that have been altered in the last several weeks? 2. Is there some way I can configure a report to give me a list of project updates made over a specified time range? BTW, the problem manifests itself now only as giving me the welcome screen on startup, upon which when I select the problem project, it fails with the above message. Then when I acknowledge the message and then kill the welcome screen it goes ahead and loads the same project without me selecting it, without any apparent problems. So I always eventually get to access the project. Still unsettling, however. It must be fixed. Thanks Dave

As I am entering the phase where I am refining my TMG database, now up to about 900 primary names, I need to change many of the place names. As an example, for people who migrated to Louisiana before the establishment of civil parishes (counties) in 1807, I need to change event tag county entries that currently state, say, "St. James Parish", to "Acadian Coast", along with the appropriate changes in the other place fields. Obviously, in this example for those event tags with dates after 1807, "St. James Parish" would remain. So to do this in batch mode, I need to filter on tag date and change only the tags that meet the date criteria. I see no way to do this, including using John Cardinal's Utility. Using the List of People, I could filter on place field names and dates, and set a flag. But once I've done that, there is no where else to go to get the rest of it done. Doing this manually, a tag at a time, will take forever. Any suggestions? Thanks, Dave D.

Shucks! I suppose I will have to spend a few days sometime in the future manually changing place names to correctly identify what they were called when. Thanks for all the input. Dave Dalton

John, I missed that capability at the bottom of the screen. Thanks for pointing it out. However, it doesn't help with my specific need, as I would want to [Change Place Parts] based on a flag I set that results from filtering dates, and the [set Flag Filter] is not available for that function. But since you have already coded the [set Flag Filter], perhaps it would be a fairly simple task to extend it to Places and other functions? Thanks, Dave

I would like for my children to have access to the electronic versions of some visual chartform charts I have generated. Is there or can there be a runtime version of visual chartform that I could ship with the chart, or must they purchase the product to look at these charts? They are much too large to generate bitmaps or jpegs. Thanks, Dave Dalton

Thanks all for some good responses, as usual. Virginia, it sounds like Family Tree Super Tools is just the thing. I will have my son download a copy for his use. Dave Dalton

Thanks for the replies. Michael, there is simply no way to avoid the need to go in later and finesse the entries, as I am learning history as I am researching (and entering) genealogical records. So there is a need to do this now with my several hundred entries and there probably will be a need to do this again to a smaller degree in the future. An "official" batch program for making global entry changes would be a welcome addition to TMG. John, with that said, be assured that I have used your utility many times with excellent results. A suggestion for perhaps a fairly easy enhancement would be to allow the use of flags to filter records to be changed in many of your utility functions. It's easy to set a flag in TMG as an output for just about anything, and then using that flag as a filter to make a global change in your utility would really enhance the utility. Thanks again, Dave Dalton

I'm in the process of entering lots of records into TMG, and I have found that generating an Ancestor chart provides a quick check of where I am in this process and just what area up the line from a particular person needs attention. I have created a custom tag to keep track of my progress entering all the data available from a particular source into a person's record, but I can't display this tag on the ancestor chart (unless I have missed that option ?). What I am able to do is to add a field in the chart options, Data Types tab, consisting of a split memo, in my case "Birth* Memo2", and am then able to add to that split memo field a code that tells me where I am, in the form of ||code||. But I am having a couple of problems: 1) I must add a non-blank character before the first double lines or the report misses the memo split. The "Memo" help screen on this doesn't look like this would be necessary (it states that a blank must be placed between double lines after the first, but not before the first). Is this normal? A bug or a feature? 2). I would much rather place this code in the memo field of the person's name (Name-Var tag), but can't find how to activate it in the chart options Data Types tab. Finally, is there a better way to do this? Thanks, Dave Dalton

Virginia, thanks for the quick tutorial. That brought it all back to me. I then went to Getting the Most Out of The Master Genealogist to review further. It makes sense now. After thinking more about it, I changed the name of the "ToDo" tag I had created earlier, calling it "Progress" like yours (describes the function better) and with a last updated date in the date field and sorting it to the very top of each person's list of tags in the date sort field, I am placing a summary in Memo 1 that can be as large as needs be and a quick summary in Memo 2 for printing on the Ancestor chart to help keep track of where I am. I also have a couple of custom flags to help me keep track of progress. This begs a larger question. My family database is about 900 names now, entered mostly several years ago into another genealogy program from a list that had no supporting evidence. What I am doing now is researching all of this database and documenting (citing) evidence, changing relationships, and adding previously unknown people. Much of that evidence on the Cajun/Acadian side of my family is now available for quick reference in Stephen White's Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Acadiennes, which I finally obtained a copy of and which I refer to to access my copies of the original documentation for proof and citation. Because of this, it is difficult to keep track of just where I am with these record updates. Questions like whether I have exhausted all of the references on a certain person contained in that dictionnaire and in other places, whether a person's entry is substantially complete otherwise, whether I can go further up the line or whether this entry is the top level, etc., have to be answered and tracked. Is there a better way to keep track of progress updating an existing database? I'm sure most TMG users are faced with this, so this shouldn't be a unique question. Perhaps it need to go into another forum? Thanks again, Dave Dalton

Michael, I had not looked at that option before you pointed it out. But after thinking a bit more about what it is that I want to do, I've decided that I really want a more robust entry in the chart to describe where I am with a particular person. The split memo field does that nicely. I can then also use the accent color feature to give me an even better indication of entry status. Virginia, Is there a good explanation of the use of these tag fields somewhere? The best way that I've found to learn them is to pick my way through the various "Selected Tag Types" for box content options and to try them, which is slow, even with my fast system. For example, you point out in the first line of your response to use a "Primary" (with the *)" tag. What's that all about? And just why is there a set of tag types in alphabetical order towards the top of this very long list of tag types, then another alphabetical list below? All, before I go forward with using the birth tag for this split memo entry, I would like to determine whether I can place it in the Name-Var memo field, which would be better because each person has one of these, but not necessarily a birth tag. Thanks again, Dave Dalton

The Research Task box, and perhaps other places, displays a numeric ID associated with selected events, as do the Person, Source, and Repository selections in that box. TMG makes good use of the Person, Source, and Repository IDs in several places by displaying them and giving the user an option to enter the numeric ID when selecting tags. It appears that the Event ID is not an accessible field for selection or display. It does not appear in the tag line on the Person view, nor on the Master Event List. The Picklist contains the Person ID, the Master Source List contains the Source ID, and the Repository List contains the Repository ID. But for an Event ID, it appears that we are out of luck--it doesn't appear in the Master Event List or anywhere else that I know of except in the Task box. Selecting an Event by Event number when it is known instead of by filtering or scrolling the Master Event List would make Event tag selection a lot easier, especially if the Event number were displayed somewhere in Tag descriptions, especially the descriptions on the Person view. Is the Event ID available for display and use anywhere? Are there plans to make it available? Am I missing something (easy enough to do, since I am a relatively new TMG user!)? Thanks, Dave Dalton

I've discovered a difference between V6 and V7.01 that I believe is a problem. I want to filter the Project Explorer to show primary names only so I can move through all the entries with a single click per person. The Project Explorer Filter dialogue allows me to do that with V6, but with V7 I must enter a value in the filter field or I get the message "Value cannot be empty." Is that a V7 bug, a feature, or am I missing something? I can get around this by specifying an unused flag and then filtering on the value of that flag, which all entries will share. But that isn't the best answer.

I need a timeline that reflects what was happening in New France generally and Acadia (now Nova Scotia) specifically from the time of the initial settlement in the early 1600s to around 1770, some time after "Le Grand Derangement". I plan to display this timeline in the person details screen while I am adding tags to assist me with keeping place names and such straight, and to serve as a reminder to properly document these things as I go through adding all the tags for a person. I would like to begin with Gregg Stott's Canada timeline, as it contains many of the events that I will incorporate into the Acadia version, copy it to an Acadia timeline, and modify and add appropriately. How can I accomplish this? I haven't found a way to copy an existing timeline then edit it. Can this be done? Is there a way to manipulate the timeline component files in the timelines folder (.dbf, .dbt, and .doc) directly to end up with a new timeline that can then be edited? Anything?

Thanks. That worked. Actually, I had tried that earlier, but while TMG was up and running, and had not exited TMG and restarted it. TMG apparently loads all its files at TMG startup, so won't recognize an additional timeline until next time it is started.