Mike Talbot

No, my thinking is that the marriage linking wife to husband makes the married name quite obvious, thus no need for me to clutter and confuse various indexes and reports with a double load. I have no quarrel with those who like to employ married names. I think of a woman's birth surname name as her primary name forever and a husband's surname as a title. I use "name variations" for stage names, noms de plume, AKAs, some French "dit" names and some widely recognized nicknames such as "Stonewall" Jackson, "Chinese" Gordon, where their true given names are not as well known, etc. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

I wish that I could answer your question. I hope someone can. As a temporary alternative, you might try the Indented Descendant Chart (a report, not really a chart, with spouse data). It's what I usually use when I want to show more generations than is size practical with the Descendant Box Chart (a very nice VCF chart). Good luck, Mike Talbot

This does not happen to me. Exported jpg charts look as good as the VCF original. What program are you using to view your exported jpg charts? Some viewing programs do strange things. If I embed any jpg file in an AOL e-mail message, I do loose resolution and the reciever observes pixelation. The same file sent as an attachment looks perfect to the receiver. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

Have you merged databases? When I did so, several years ago, images originating from data set 1 woked fine with VCF. Images originating from data set 2 did not work with VCF even though the image definition looked perfect in the exhibit window and log details, including the primary designation check. After many "easy way" attempts, the only known fix was to individually and manually redefine each image originating from data set 2. If desired, delete the old non-working images. If this is your problem the data set 2 originating images will not work with VCF ancestry or hourglass charts, either. This merge problem was still not fixed a few months ago since someone else reported this same problem on the TMG V6 forum. Sorry for the late reply. I didn't know VCF had a separate forum (not a good plan) until today. VCF is what sets TMG above other genealogy programs. Good luck, Mike Talbot

When this happened to me, it was my fault. I had entered both the given name and surname in the given name field. You can see if this is your problem only by editing the name. Hope this is it, since it's so easy to fix, Mike Talbot

Mike: Are Thomas Lewis and Mary Blyzzard the ancestors of any of the six magenta people in the 3 cousinship sets below? (I guess that Jeremiah Lewis could be just a coincidence from a different Lewis line.) .The calculator gives as relationships between Charlene and Joe .2nd cousins 1 time removed (from Josephine -> John Purdum/Jemima King) .2nd cousins 2 times removed (from Homer -> John King/Jemima Miles) .3rd cousins 2 times removed (from Homer -> Jeremiah Lewis/Jane Fitzgerald) But if they are, they will not give an additional cousinship between Charlene and Joe. In any case, do have fun on the cruise, Mike Talbot

Oops! Read "your wife" where it says "your mom" in previous post. Mea culpa, Mike Talbot

If Joe's mother and father are cousins to each other as well as cousins to your mom, then your mom does not get a one to one correspondence of cousinships to Joe. It is highly probable that some cousinship lines appear in both Joe's mom's and his dad's ancestry, at least one must. At least one line for each must contain a duplicate, if all three people are cousins to each other. You can't count any of them twice (double dipping). Each cousinship line from your mom to Joe must be unique and not contain an ancestor that is in another cousinship line. Only the closest cousinship in a line counts. So, there must be at least one less cousinship between your mom and Joe than the sum of the number of cousinships of Joe's parents to your mom. To explain my use of the term, you can view one complete "cousinship line" by using the Relationship Chart Report, but you can only see one, the nearest of all relationships. For example: if Joe's dad's 2nd cousinship is in the same line as Joe's mom's 7th cousinship, then the 7th cousinship effect between Joe and your mom disappears. (please excuse me for neglecting the removes, lazy. Sorry my explanation is not as clear as I would like). Another example: If two people are full 1st cousins, then half of their ancestry is identical. By definition, there is no possibility of a more distant cousinship exisiting via the ancestral lines of their 2 grandparents in common. By extension, once you get to any common ancestor (a unique line) of two people, you do not search for another cousinship beyond that point. I hope that you can find an explanation for your discrepancy. If you do, please post it. So far, I have found no errors in any TMG stated relationships. I have manually checked many, but only a very small percentage. Sorry to ramble and belabor the point. Just food for thought and good luck, Mike (also) Talbot PS: Everyone native to S.Louisiana, that I've helped with genealogy (except my wife, luckily. We knew little of our ancestry 'til we were married for 20 years.) is a multiple cousin of mine. My mom and dad were 5th cousins. Glad I didn't have to leave the state. My "thought to be unrelated" step-father turned out to be my 5th cousin once removed, etc., etc. My son married a 6th cousin, one dau.married a boy form Georgia, only 20th cousins and the other daughter married a Yankee from Michigan, totally unrelated, so far. I use TMG 6.12, also.

I have found up to 26 relationships with the Relationship Calculator. I have found no way to configure a limit to the number. TMG will only find the closest relationship in a line. Have you double checked to make sure that none of your more distant cousins do not pass through a closer cousin? From the distribution of your relationships, though possible, skipping from 3rd to 7th cousin, double dipping on a cousin might be suspected. Improvements needed for TMG: . Remember the user setting for the max. generations. If set to high, in a very large database, this causes a seemingly endless loop. The default 250 is ridiculous. . Arm the escape key to terminate the Relationship Calculator, when the user thinks it's taking too long. Now one must use alt-ctl-del. This action would corrupt the database of TMG5. TMG6 seems to avoid this bullet, so far. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. The standard TMG database, reports and charts are meant to record and display familial, ie: genetic, genealogical (blood, though I don’t like the term), relationships. This, alone, is a very big job and is well done by TMG. The following may not be obvious to new users of TMG. The good news: 1. TAGs, like NOTE, give you the ability to link two unrelated people together and describe any sort of reason for doing so. You will see this “note” on either person’s Detail Display while editing or browsing in TMG. 2. TMG (and a good word processor, I use Word 2000) gives you the tools to make any type report or chart that you would like. You can output text reports to a word processor file and box charts to VCF files. 3. You can then copy and paste pieces from these files to make any type of chart or report that is pleasing you. 4. You can even combine box charts and text reports, with a little work and practice, to make any sort of amalgamated document. You can copy and paste portions of a word processor file into a VCF box and move the boxes about or add and delete boxes, lines and images. You can export a completed, hand edited VCF chart to a graphics file and import that into a word processor document. 5. You can add your own images, boxes, lines and descriptions connecting these fragments as desired. You are bound only by your imagination and energy and not by genetic relationships. Standard TMG has done the hardest work for you. A very, very simple example: You have genetic parents plus a step-father that adopted you. You have everyone’s ancestry in TMG and you want a box chart showing your social relationship to your step-father’s ancestry. Make a VCF Ancestor Box chart on yourself. Make a VCF Ancestor Box chart on your step-father. Using VCF, select, Edit>Copy your box from your chart. Then on your step-father’s chart Edit>Paste your box onto his chart. Move your box to the bottom of the chart under your step-father’s box. Connect your box to his with a dotted line of a different color. You can even write the word “adopted” next to this connector line. If you like, you could also copy and paste your wife's and genetic mother’s data at appropriate places. It’s quicker to do, than to describe. The possibilities are endless. Good luck and enjoy the results, Mike Talbot

I haven't used Word2002, but in Word2000: Click on INSERT Click on INDEX and TABLES fill out the simple pop-up form and Voila, the index appears. Now if we could only get an index referencing Ahnentafel Numbers instead of page numbers... Good luck, Mike Talbot

Attached is one possible design for VCF Relationship Chart (previously posted). It was assembled from standard TMG Box Chart components. Advantages: 1. Images are included 2. Fixes the problem that long names and places are truncated in the current Relationship Chart 3. It is more esthetically pleasing and raises the presentation quality comensurate with what is expected of TMG reports 4. Potentially more generations per 8.5 inch wide page 5. Design uses current VCF boxes, reducing developement costs to a minimum Does anyone agree? Comments? Suggestions? Best wishes, Mike Talbot Attached is one possible design for VCF Relationship Chart (previously posted). It was assembled from standard TMG Box Chart components. Advantages: 1. Images are included 2. Fixes the problem that long names and places are truncated in the current Relationship Chart 3. It is more esthetically pleasing and raises the presentation quality comensurate with what is expected of TMG reports 4. Potentially more generations per 8.5 inch wide page 5. Design uses current VCF boxes, reducing developement costs to a minimum Does anyone agree? Comments? Suggestions? Best wishes, Mike Talbot Attached is one possible design for VCF Relationship Chart (previously posted). It was assembled from standard TMG Box Chart components. Advantages: 1. Images are included 2. Fixes the problem that long names and places are truncated in the current Relationship Chart 3. It is more esthetically pleasing and raises the presentation quality comensurate with what is expected of TMG reports 4. Potentially more generations per 8.5 inch wide page 5. Design uses current VCF boxes, reducing developement costs to a minimum Does anyone agree? Comments? Suggestions? Best wishes, Mike Talbot

Yes, yes, yes! No more PDF, please! It would also be great if the Relationship box chart output to VCF, as do all the other box charts. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

It depends on the order of adding people and how you link people. If you add a new person as the child of a relative, the calculated relationship of that child will occur and update. If you link a previously unrelated person to a parent, who is a relative, the relationship calculation will not occur. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

There is a more elegant way. But what I do is: 1. select the title text in the upper corner 2. edit > copy 3. edit > paste, then move copy to desired location 4. right click on new text > detailed properties: a. set text font style and desired color b. set box properties, if desired (I often don't want a box, if you do, un-check transparent) 5. select and edit your new text. You may change box or text boundries shape and edit text as desired, "new lines" will be automatically generated or removed by VCF. Experiment, it's fun. Good luck, Mike Talbot

Can you remember the sizes of your two Data Sets before the merge? If you have not run Reindex, you can approximate which ID numbers were from Data Set 2. You have identified two bits of data, that I did not see, that should help TMG fix the problem. 1. You can have 2 Primary Exhibits!!! 2. Second Site circumvents the problem!!! The TMG Utility also circumvented the problem and would not find the offending images at the time that I had the problem. I would have taken a much longer time to discover this exhibit problem if not for VCF. Without VCF, TMG is just another genealogy program. If only all TMG chart reports would output to VCF! Good luck, Mike

I had a similar problem a few years ago, after merging two data sets into one. The images originating from Data Set 1 (before the merge) behaved perfectly in reports. Those from Data Set 2 did not appear in any report. All images looked correct in the exhibit log The only solution was to manually redefine all images that originated from Data Set 2. Did you merge Data Sets? Best wishes and good luck, Mike Talbot

I have experienced no degradation in performance in any of these functions or any other area with the 6.11 update. Have used TMG a lot since update. Have a 3.4 GHz Pentium with 500 MB RAM, Windows XP Home Ed. The only thing I can think of is to DEFRAG your disk. I do so regularly. If you haven't done so in a while, execute DEFRAG when you won't need your computer for a long time, like bedtime or when leaving for work. Good luck, Mike Talbot

The standard buttons suit me just fine. Note: Female color coding is really pale pink on deep magenta (the false color appearance is due to my screen capture program) Sibling and Children windows are normally partially hidden (spouse portion). The hidden portion appears when you click on window. Best wishes, Mike Talbot The standard buttons suit me just fine. Note: Female color coding is really pale pink on deep magenta (the false color appearance is due to my screen capture program) Sibling and Children windows are normally partially hidden (spouse portion). The hidden portion appears when you click on the window. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

The Relationship Chart would be vastly improved by VCF output. TMG could design a new box that included the spouse in each generation or it could use the same boxes as designed for the ancestor/descendant chart in tandem. Either way would be great. Advantages: 1. Long names and places are truncated in the current WP implementation (very unsatifactory). 2. Images can be auto-included in VCF charts. A huge improvement! 3. Charts would be much more attractive in VCF. 4. All VCF charts would look like they were from the same planet. Distinctive and consistancy, consistancy, consistancy. 5. User editing is easier in VCF (VCF automatically adjusts box height based on edited contents). 6 It would make me and many others, very happy, indeed. Best wishes, Mike

A possible Sample of VCF based Relationship Chart (done in VCF by merging and editing 2 ancestor charts / scaled at 60% of actual size) Notes: Spouse boxes have slight overlap. Both subjects to include last viewed spouse. Added advantages: Potentially more generations per page, depending on user specifications. This design uses existing TMG/VCF boxes. There is no problem if the descent is from different spouses of the common ancestor, just place each spouse to the appropriate side of the common ancestor. Please, Mike Talbot

I can get all marriages or no marriages of each person in the Direct Line report. Is there a way to get a line with the spouse of record (ie the spouse that produced the next generation) in each generation? If not, I fervently wish that you could. This report is seldom useful without the involved spouse. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

The NOTE tag is very powerful, having fields for date, place and can be shared/linked with another person. TMG cripples the NOTE tag by allowing only one primary NOTE per person to appear in reports. Some people have many notable events in their lives. Some are date sensitive, others are not. Some involve another person, others not . There is no way that all the notes for some people can be combined into one. The NOTE tag should be like the marriage tag, where all are assumed to be primary, unless the user invokes the *. The user should be able to control whether all, some or none of the NOTEs appear in reports. Restoring the power of the note tag would be transparent to all existing users, if the update did not change the * on existing notes. Best wishes, Mike Talbot

Thank you. Don't know how "primary tags only" got set, but that was the problem. Mike Talbot

One solution to this problem is to assign a BIRTH tag to each and every person. If only the baptism date is known, use the BEFORE prefix with the christened date in the BIRTH tag. You can add the word Baptized / Christened in the detail line or memo box, if you like. You can specify a place other than the church name. If no date is known about the person, you can invent one from known dates of ancestors or descendants. Use the CIRCA prefix or the "?" suffix to show that this is not a true recorded date. You can explain your logic in the detail line or memo if desired. Best wishes, Mike Talbot