Judy M.

I haven't tested a backup lately...and have a question: Please remind me what I need to consider if I'm restoring my most recent backup so that I don't lose any settings? Do I simply choose "Restore" and use the Wizard without making any changes?

Thanks!

Thanks for the lengthy explanation. This follows what I've done in other similar situations. In the example that I tried to explain originally (not very successfully, as it turned out!), I do want to keep the bio-mother and stepfather as primary, and the issue I ran into for Journal Reports is that the bio-parents showed no children. Since that was inaccurate, I needed the NarrativeChildren tag to remove that notation (and decided to manually fill in the children's names). Fortunately, in this case the children's surnames make it very clear to the reader who their parents are (they have hyphenated surnames), so I don't mind the fact that although they appear to be the bio-children of the step-father in both the Journal Report and Descendant Indented Chart.

When you refer to the "trick," do you mean what I am doing by manually adding the children's names to the NarrativeChildren tag via the Sentence Structure? The output is what I want.

I hope this indicates that I am understanding more and again apologize for any confusion.

So it sounds like I will be doing this manually. I guess I've been inconsistent in how I've handled similar situations in the past. I generally just make sure I'm happy with the reports I generate.

What I don't quite understand from what you're saying is that currently the children are listed as primary as the step-children of my son and his new wife...and also as primary under the "original" parents (i.e., with asterisks in both cases).

I had searched for and read everything (help menu, your links, etc.) before posting my question using the Help menu in TMG and doing a Google search. What led me to asking whether I should simply edit the sentence structure was this:

"To be useful, the NarrativeChildren tag will require a custom sentence. In this context, the NarrativeChildren sentence recognizes a [:NoBirthPlaces:] code which will cause birth places to be suppressed from the subsequent list of children.

"In all other contexts and in all other ways (including all other reports), the NarrativeChildren tag acts like any other tag in the Other group."

If that means I edit the sentence structure manually, that's fine. What I don't know is whether there might be another way to handle this where I would be using "codes" through which I would enter the children's names, especially with the reference above to suppressing birth places from the list of children. That seems to imply that there's a way to generate the list of children.

I already have the three children listed as step-children of the step-father and bio-mother but would like to show them as children of the two bio-parents also (which is not conventional). I'm sorry that I didn't explain that well in my very first post. Is it therefore best to just edit the sentence structure?

Meanwhile, I have learned a lot in general and appreciate your taking the time to explain so thoroughly.

I just want to say that X and Y had three children: A, B, and C. I'm not particularly concerned about whether I'm doing it the "best" way, just that the output says what I want. So maybe I can just use the NarrativeChildren tag and tack on the names of the children in the "Sentence structure." I would prefer not to go into detail here, but it's a rather complicated situation. I don't know how to use "codes" to add their names.

I'm sorry that I made this so complicated for you. I appreciate your taking the time to explain so much.

I had checked out all those suggestions earlier, but I'm still not clear as to how to actually add the children's names. Also, are there examples of output anywhere?

Okay...so how/where do I enter the names of the children using the NarrativeChildren tag -- [:TAB:]The children of [P] <and [PO]> were as follows:[:NP:] ?? Should I just enter the names in the Sentence-structure section...or is there another way to do this?

Thanks!

Is there any way to eliminate the "There were no children of..." sentence in a Journal Report when I want to refer to the children as the stepchildren of a non-bio parent, not the children of the bio-parent? I know this doesn't fit the definition of "GENEology," but for a number of reasons it's what I would like to try to do...somehow. There can be an explanation as, perhaps, an Anecdote, but the "There were no children of..." sentence remains.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to compare reports with and without your format to fully understand what's eliminated.

But there's no report setting that would help, I gather.

Good morning (at least it's morning in Albany, NY!),

I have been asked whether I can print a Journal Report without having repetitive information, such as residences and immigration, for children. If there's a setting for this, I don't know what it is. I do realize that by doing this, if someone wants to check a particular child's data, it won't be there. And I haven't tried to determine how far-reaching this would be...if it's even doable.

Thanks in advance!

Judy

Yes, the Journal Report is fine, and I include an anecdote tag that explains who the stepchild's parents are to avoid confusion.

Thanks very much!

I guess I never noticed that before...and I do have other families for which I've included stepchildren. (Yeah, I know they don't belong in a family tree...which is why I call it a "family history"!) Is there a way to force the correct order of marriages?

NEVER MIND -- IT'S WORKING NOW. I REMOVED CHILDREN THAT WERE FROM THE HUSBANDS' PREVIOUS MARRIAGES. I don't know why that mattered, but apparently it did.

I have a woman in my tree who was married three times. The first time was in 1974 (sort date 1974), the second time in 1979 (sort date 1979), and the third time "unknown," so I used a sort date of 1990. Each marriage is appropriately labeled as first marriage, second marriage, and third marriage. However, the second and third marriages are out of order in the Descendant Indented Chart. I ran all the maintenance options, but the marriages are still out of order. Any idea what may have happened or what I can do to fix this?

Judy

Thanks...again!

Yes, I'm sure it was obvious that I haven't used Flags beyond the default flags. At this point, I think I'll stick with a Family Group for this particular family.

Thanks so much for all your input, Terry and Michael! I can always come back to this message thread for more ideas!

I think I like the Family Group idea. Is there a shortcut for choosing the "Family Goup" flag?

If I have a Family Group for the family that so far isn't connected to an existing family, will it be totally isolated (i.e., won't print when I print reports)? And if we eventually find that that Family Group is part of our existing family, would it be easy to "attach" it?

This would be easy if I were just starting out. But with a picklist of over 6,000 names (of course, that includes name variations) and 13 distinct families -- I dunno.

Hmmm...if I want to segregate just this one family group, could I enter one name, set up the Connected flag for that particular family and -- what would happen to all my other entries? More confusion!

Hmmmm...I have to think about this.

Okay -- but I have to go through this process "CONNECTED flag" for each family...right? Or could I have chosen myself as the focus person? Can I edit what I've already done (using a relative as the focus person)?

Hmmm...I already have some unrelated people in my data set (e.g., parents of those related by marriage). I guess I have a project ahead of me -- and a learning experience!

Before I get too confused -- -- what would be the downside of simply adding one unrelated person, connecting him/her with his/her family, and not use accents/flags?

Sounds like a plan. Thanks!

Thanks, Terry. So...the "new" family would be connected to each other and not my "known" family in any way; right? And if it turns out that they're not related to us, that family can't be deleted in one fell swoop because of their relationships to each other?

Of course, the other option is to simply not add them unless we find the connection!