wunner

May I add the "truncating names" issue with the v8 pedigree report (a topic I posted on 01 January) to the list of issues to be addressed? That too was not a problem in v7, but is so in v8.

I've been waiting for v8 so I could output reports to a word processor and, while that does seem to work just fine, I've discovered that there is a "name" truncating issue when sending a pedigree chart to a word processor. I have some long names in my database (some with a title or a suffix or both, and many with a middle name), but I find that these long names are being severely truncated in v8---even though there seems to be plenty of "name space" available in either the four or five generation pedigree chart. While the output is in a proportional font, making it hard to set a fixed character count, it looks to me like I'm losing up to as many as 14 characters for extremely long names. This also happens when I output the pedigree chart as a PDF---I get exactly the same truncation as the word processor output. Interestingly, when I run the same pedigree chart using v7 to output a PDF, the truncating is much less severe and I get most of my long names---so something changed in v8. I'm not sure what anyone could suggest, except that maybe this is something that WG should look at. John

I looked at a few pages of the 1910 Census for Endicott, WA, and the heading on the top of several Census pages says: "Precinct 15 (Endicott Precinct)". So that sort of answers your question. But since this is farmland there are no street addresses as there would be for a city...so you may never know for sure if he ever moved to another location in Endicott. Have you checked to see if his neighbors were the same in each Census year? John

I really like the feature of being able to add the code [+] to a burial sentence to link it to a death sentence ("John died on 16 Sep 1872 and was buried on 18 Sep 1872") and I've added it to many of my "people." My question is whether I should just universally enable this feature by modifying the default burial sentence instead of selectively modifying individual local burial sentences. I can't think of any drawbacks, but I thought I should first ask all of you for your advice before I made such a dramatic change. Also, if your advice is that it's OK to go ahead with changing the default burial sentence, then I'll need help constructing a filter to find the few hundred local burial sentence changes that I've already made so that I can "unmodify" them and use the new default burial sentence. John

Thanks Terry. I knew you'd come up with some good reasons for me to be cautious before universally using a [+]. I'll take the time to reflect on the issues you raised to be sure I don't cause problems for myself down the road. And thanks too for the filter. John

My apologies to Michael and Jim. When I re-read my post ("It's unlikely that you'll see a response from a Moderator...") it sounded a bit nasty, but that was not my intention. I was simply making the point that this topic had been brought up and responded to many times before. John

To Pat et al: The issue of "at" or "in" has been brought up many times in the past and, like you, I find it frustrating that we have to find a "workaround" on our own for something that I feel should be handled within TMG. Good for you Pat that you referenced a link with a detailed explanation of how and when "at" and "in" should be used. It's unlikely that you'll see a response from a Moderator because in the past the answer has always been to find a workaround. But I consider a workaround to be a solution to maybe a 1% or 2% problem...not a 10% or 20% (or more) problem. The fact that this issue keeps getting raised means that it bothers a lot of people and shouldn't just be blown off as a minor nuisance. John

Hi John. I was waiting to see if anyone else answered your question because I too have struggled with the issue of step-children in Journal reports (my preferred report format). But since no one else has replied, let me tell you what I do. Rather than trying to make TMG do what it isn't designed to do (by creating those special tags you mentioned), I simply do a cut & paste of two separate reports after I export them into Word. The first report is my primary multi-generational ancestor Journal, which of course doesn't include any non-related second spouses, nor any step-siblings. Then, since I (and I assume you) already have all of the data about the second spouse and his/her children entered in TMG, I just run a one-generation ancestor Journal report from one of the step-siblings. Then, in Word, I do a cut & paste of the information about the second spouse and step-siblings, merging that data into my "real" ancestor Journal report. If you have other ancestors with step-children, just run additional one-generation reports and paste away. You will have to do some minor editing of the pasted data insofar as numbering is concerned, but at least the basic format of the pasted data (the indents and tabs) is consistent with what I think you're trying to accomplish. As for citations...well that could get a bit messy because of automatic source-numbering. Maybe someone else might have an idea for handling that. John

Do you mean that you created two new marriage tags? Marriage 1 and Marriage 2? If so, then you've made it more complicated then it needs to be and you will get the result you're seeing. For people married more than once, just use the regular marriage tag as is...no changes. The dates will put the marriages in the proper order. What I then usually do is modify the sentence for the second marriage to read something like: "After his first wife died, [P] married [PO] <[D]> <[L]>"...of course without the quotes. Have I understood you correctly? John

I've tried and tried, but I can't figure out a filter that does the following: I've acquired a lot of cemetery interment lists, and while many include both death dates and burial dates, some only report burial dates. As a result, when I have a burial date of, for example, "17 Oct 1904," I've entered "Oct 1904" as the death date...without recording a specific day. With so many death indexes (indices?) now available online, I'd like to start looking for the exact death dates of these people. Because I probably have a few hundred entries (out of >10,000) that would fit this situation, I tried to create a filter that has a full burial date but only a partial death date, missing only the specific day (as I've noted above), but I haven't been able to figure out a filter that works. Am I trying to do something that can't be done? John

Thanks Michael for a thorough walk-through. The good news is that it works!!! (I never thought of using flags in that way.) John

Michael and Helmut: Thanks for the replies. But from your answers, it seems that you too are finding that a solution to my likely unique problem is not that obvious...that's why I've been struggling. Maybe the solution requires two steps? First to capture all people who have a full burial date, and then a second filter for those people who do not have a "day" of death (just a month and year). I know how to do it when I have a full burial date and the death date is blank, but not when I have a full burial date and only the month and year of death. Now if only I knew how to filter a filtered group!!! John

Terry: Shouldn't the new NarrativeChildren tag have included the "||" delimiter in the default sentence to make use of the "living" flag? That would result in "...children are..." or "...children were..." much the same as produced in the pre-version 7 journal reports. John

Mr. Cardinal probably thought your question was more complicated and you had a kazillion entries to add. The simple answer is that when you have the person for whom you want to add any tag on the screen, just click on "Add" (at the top), then select "Add Tag," then for your specific task scroll down until you see "Name-Marr." Double-click on that and you'll get a data entry screen to add the married name in the surname box. Remember to add a date so it shows up on your screen in an acceptable order...I usually add a sort date that is one day later than the marriage date. John

While on the Master Place List screen, highlight the location that you're interested in, and then click on "Events." That will open another window with a list of tags which include that "Place," with names and ID numbers. John

You may wish to try a Journal report (set to Descendants) instead of a Desendancy Narrative report. A Journal report does much of what you want automatically. Try it. Also, you may wish to modify the marriage sentences for the second marriage. I've modified mine to read: "After Mary died, [P] married..." Remember to do separate sentences for Bride and Groom. John

Mike...You need to understand how to use "sort dates." TMG will use the first date it sees as the date to use for sorting events...unless you specify a different sort date. So for the occupation, when it sees the range 1772-1780, it will sort on 1772. You can override this by entering your own sort date for specific tags (the sort date does not print in any reports). Then you are in control of the sequence of events as they would appear in reports. As for the age displayed...for most tags (death being one exception), this doesn't print in any report unless you modify the default sentence to include it. So don't be distracted by the age display on the person view screen. John

One thing that has always bothered me in generating narrative reports is having to choose between 'in' or 'at' as the preposition preceding a location. 'In' New York sounds fine, but not 'in' 500 State St., New York. On the other hand, 'at' 500 State St., New York, sounds fine, but not 'at' New York. Couldn't there be another choice that would select either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not? [Referring here to the US Standard Place Style] If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'.

Hi Teresa, Your point is valid, but you are talking about exceptions. For most BMD events it's unlikely that you would want to say "He was born from New York" or "He was married near St. Mark's Church." When you do have exceptions, that's where the flexibility of TMG comes into play. But for most events (as I suggested in my original posting) TMG could be structured to make a better in/at decision than universally one or the other by selecting either 'in' or 'at' depending on whether the Addressee and Detail place fields are empty or not. If those fields are empty, then use 'in'...if they're not empty, use 'at'. That would be a lot more straightforward and would minimize the need for custom place styles just to get most narrative sentences to read correctly. John

I think some may have missed the point in my original suggestion that TMG use our entered data to determine whether "in" or "at" is the more appropriate preposition for place names. Obviously TMG is very flexible in providing users with the ability to customize almost anything, but shouldn't we expect that basic functions would be an integral part of the program? We all have to live with the in/at issue in almost every report, and as TMG is now structured we must make a universal decision whether to use either "in" or "at." Of course we could create custom place styles as has been suggested, but I suspect that most TMG users will rarely customize anything and will run the program as is. So why couldn't this in/at decision be made by TMG based on place data contents to make it more satisfactory for everyone? John

Why not just run a Journal report? Set it to 'Descendants' and select one generation. That should give you what you want. John

When I access the Master Source List, it shows the number of times that a source has been cited. What I would like to do, and can't figure out how to do, is to filter my dataset to result in a list of people for whom a particular source is cited.

Considering some of the "big" problems some users have, this is a minor one...but one that bothers me a bit. When I run reports I prefer two spaces between sentences for readability. And for most reports I can set that under: Report Options / Miscellaneous / Narratives. But quite often I use "Note" tags for additional information about people/places/whatever, and in particular I use the Memo field of those Note tags for that additional information. When my Memo field has multiple sentences, I type two spaces between sentences. But when I print the report, TMG ignores what I've typed (and what is showing in the "saved" Memo field) and prints the content of my Memo field with only one space between sentences. Am I missing a setting somewhere?

Thanks Bob, but not quite. What you describe will separate the Memo field from the previous text (the two CRs) and indent the first sentence (the TAB). What I'm describing is the fact that when the Memo field contains multiple sentences, it prints, by default, only one space between sentences...even when I had typed in two spaces between each sentence. John

Terry...you are amazing. Your suggestion to use a List of Citations report with a Source Number filter did exactly what I wanted. Thanks.