Jump to content

Mike Talbot

NewMembers
  • Content count

    361
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Mike Talbot

  1. Talbot, Mike

    New website address: http://LAgenealogy.net/default.aspx The old, impossible to remember, address will still work. Best wishes,
  2. Talbot, Mike

    The old site URLs have been saved (for a fee) by SkyKick services. Please ignore the .zxq URLs. For example, continue to use: http://LAgenealogy.net/Talbot.aspx Mike
  3. Talbot, Mike

    Microsoft is withdrawing their MS Office Live website hosting service needed for my LAgenealogy web site on 30 Apr 2012. At least they gave notice of the pending execution date. Microsoft’s new replacement hosting service is totally incompatible with their old. They offer no conversion programs to assist the user in transition. Since I will have to redo the site, from scratch, anyway, I'm searching for a more reliable host company and may have found one. Daughter, Kris, has been a big help in this. A “work in progress”, limited site is and will be temporarily available at URL http://lagenealogy.zxq.net/Talbot.html Navigation between pages is the same as with the old site. All 90 pages are there.. If you want to copy anything to your computer from the old site, please do so before the above date. All of the old site items are available on the new temporary site, but not fully tested. Mike
  4. This example is presented for an exchange of ideas. Recently, I was asked to produce a chart showing Brooke Shields' connection to the current Grand Duke of Luxembourg. As it turns out, her 2nd cousin is married to the brother of the present Grand Duke. I had never considered doing such a relationship by marriage chart before. The hardest part was visualizing how best to show this. The VCF work took little more than an hour. Work? It was fun! Attached is the resulting chart in two formats, JPG and PDF using CutePDF Writer (for viewing by us visually challenged folks). It is a composite of 3 ancestor charts (most of the needed boxes) and 2 descendant charts (just to get spouse boxes). The chart layout fits a landscape, letter sized page. The individual techniques involved are explained in old posts by Virginia, Robin and me. Suggestions? Questions? Comments? Note: My apologies, some liberties were taken with the long nobility names. Best wishes, 0LuxembBrooke.pdf
  5. Inserting Images as Background

    Please read and understand Virginia's reply. As Virgina said, make frequent inttermediate backup copies of your VCF chart, during editing. The purpose of this reply is to give an example and some restrictions. I prefer JPG format pics to import into VCF. BMP and a few other graphics formats are also supported for VCF importation. PDF file import is not supported by VCF. You must first convert the PDF file to a graphics format that VCF can handle. That topic is best addressed in an ADOBE forum or support group. The size of a VCF imported graphics file must be smaller than your VCF."canvas". You can make your canvas really big to begin, then trim it to your desired page size later. In the following example the ancestor chart was generated and edited to fit on letter size paper (see the 5 generation chart topic in this forum from July). The techniques work on any reasonable size.. Expand your canvas size to be larger than the background picture and then import it. It is best to have a picture slightly larger than the desired final size, resolution will not be lost when you resize it. Move the picture to the upper or left edge of your page to serve as an anchor for resizing the picture. To resize, select the picture, it is still covering part of your chart. You will see 8 dots around your picture, one at each corner and one at the mid point of each border. Place the mouse cursor on the lower right corner dot, while holding down the left mouse button. If you want.to preserve the picture's aspect ratio, simultaneously hold down the keyboard shift key. Move the mouse while holding down the left button toward the center of your picture until it is reduced to your desired size (probably when it is at or within the opposite page border from your chosen anchor border). Now use the BACK menu entry to place your picture in the background, behind your chart. You may now move your background picture to yor desired location, since you can now see what parts of the background are covered by your chart.. Don't be afraid to slightly move a few chart components if they cover a key portion of your background. Finally, perform other desired chart editing and trim the chart to the final desired size. There are two background pictures in the attached example chart plus three person boxes copied and pasted from other charts. The identical example chart is shown twice in both JPG and PDF format. It is easier to do than to describe. Good luck, 0Ancestors_of_Gen__Pierre_Gustave_Toutant_Beauregard.pdf
  6. 1. There is no column identifying the Topic originator in the new forum list of Topics. .Important!!! 2. One has to log in to view attachments within a Topic message. It's not convenient to do this. A royal pain in the posterior.. Ignore item 2, my mistake. 3. The two line Topic Title has been reduced to one. Need one line for the feature, the second for the problem detail as of old. 4. To view old Topics within a forum, one must laboriously go one page at a time. The old software allowed one to go directly to page 4, etc. 5. The Topic avatar thumbnail sometimes makes me look too fat. Aspect ratio, anyone? Can these new shortcomigs be fixed? Best wishes,
  7. Where a forum quote ends and a reply starts is not obvious nor even discernable, and should be with the new forum support. IPS seems to be a step backwards for supporting a forum, so far. What was the matter with the old forum support? Best wishes,
  8. Dotted lines in VCF not printing

    Ditto. A work-around that works for me (TMG7/XP): Install the Cute PDF Writer program as a printer. Use it to print your chart that contains dotted lines to a file from VCF. Print the chart PDF file to a printer using Adobe Reader. Dotted lines are on your hard-copy. Magic, in one easy extra step. Another advantage of VCF charts in PDF file format is that you can magnify your chart on the screen on in print using Adobe. Good luck,
  9. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
  10. Merry Christmas

    Ditto for 2011 and 2012,
  11. Non-Image Exhibits

    Please tell us and give an example of what you are trying to accomplish with a non-graphic primary personal exhibit. The personal exhibit that you select as primary only affects the relatively small image contained in VCF chart boxes and the small image that appears in the exhibit editing window. Non-graphic format exhibits may be selected for any other function. Best wishes,
  12. Tips: You can group select all spouses (as Virginia's tutorial instructed), within a generation, and move them by jogging all at once. I like for the spouse box to overlap or at least touch the descendant box (a matter of personal taste). Then you can group select all of those nasty spouse connector lines, within a generation, and delete them once. Then move on to do the same for the next generation, etc. I like to color fill the descendants' boxes and leave the spouse boxes uncolored. To do this, it is best to leave a little horizontal offset of the spouse from the descendant. If you change your mind on the coloring, later, the offset allows group sections for color changes. Some like to generate a large bold single character equal sign (=) and place it between/overlapping each spouse and descendant. It can be rotated 90 degrees, when desired. (generate it once and make and move copies) Enjoy,
  13. Hi Virginia thanks for trying to help me. I'm happy with everything I'm doing here and think Terry Tips will sort out my VCF edit problems. At present my remaining question is "I did see the Lifespan option and ticked the year to year option box but when I saw nothing appear on the chart sort of forgot about it. What else do I need to do to get it into the chart?? " Any guidance I can get on that particualr point much appreciated. thanks again Roger Sorry Virginia I now see you already said you don't know why the Lifespan data failed to appear. Guess I will wait to see if anyone else can make a suggestion. OK I've found out what to do now. So end of thread I think. thanks everyone Roger Check your Report Definition > Options They should look similar to the attached to get minimum size with lifespan Good luck,
  14. How to

    How does one insert a link to an old forum message into a new message? Thanks,
  15. Backups failed

    Have you tried to "reboot" ??? Good luck,
  16. This has been shown in a different fashion on this forum in the past. It bears repeating, since the five generation ancestor chart is the standard presentation in many genealogy publications and societies. It has been called a Seize Quartiers for many centuries. It was so named for the sixteen persons in the 5th generation. At some places and times, one had to submit their Seize Quartiers to be considered for many jobs and positions, both secular and religious. TMG 5 generation ancestor charts can be quickly and easily edited with VCF to fit on U.S. letter size paper (8.5 x 11 inches). With a little practice the job can be done in less than 30 seconds. 1. Generate a standard TMG 5 gen. ancestor chart. For charts larger than the screen, you may use the View>Zoom to fit menu entry to show the entire chart. In VCF place the mouse cursor outside the lower right corner of the chart. 2. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the upper left of the chart with the resulting dashed line rectangle overlapping the subject box (generation 1). Release the mouse button. You have group selected all the components of the 2nd through 5th generations, but not the subject. 3. Move the cursor over any selected box. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the selected components to the left until the left most component overlaps about three-quarters of the subject box. See attached example 1 for the result. 4. Group select generations 3 through 5 as per instructions 2 and 3 above. Drag the selected components to the left until the right-most component of the selected group is within the right hand cutmark of the VCF page. See attached example 2 for the result. 5. Observe that connector lines deface the boxes of the subject and his parents. Fix this by selecting each of these 3 boxes and clicking on the "Front" menu entry (a yellow square partially covering 2 gray squares). 6. Trim the chart (Tools>Diagram measurements>size to components). You now have a 5 gen. ancestor chart on letter size paper in less than 30 seconds (after practice). See attached example 3. You may now apply your artistic talents and whims to the chart by adding photos, explanitory text, components from other charts (such as spouses, siblings), etc. You may also move components around on the chart to where they please you. See example 4. Best wishes, enjoy VCF,
  17. 5 generation ancestor chart

    When you have images for all 31 people on a 5 generations ancestor chart, the simple 30 second fix shown in the first example in this topic will fail to fit an 8.5 x 11 in. (standard US letter size) sheet of paper. In this example, the raw VCF chart generated was 10.5 x 15.5 inches. You will need to reduce the height of this chart, as well as its width. To do so will take a bit more than 30 seconds, but less than 10 minutes. 1. Generate and edit your 5 generations chart as per the first message in this topic. You now have an 8.5 x 15.5 in. chart in this example. 2. To reduce the height of the chart, group-select all chart components for the 15 persons at the bottom of generation 5 all the way to the left edge or the chart. Jog the selection upwards until the 2nd person's box overlaps the 1st persons box in generation 5. At first, take care that you do not cover any important information in the box that is being overlapped. 3. Now, group-select all components for the 14-5th generation bottom persons in the chart. Jog the selection upwards until the 3rd person's box overlaps the 2nd persons box in generation 5. Repeat this step until you have moved up and overlapped all boxes in generation 15. 4. You may now twek your moves to achieve your desired chart height. If you must cover some important data in a 5th generation box it's OK. Most charts from other products don't support a picture for 5th generation folks and replace BMD data with something like life span. Finally, trim your chart. Notes: 1. I always copy and add spouse box(es) from another chart, overlapping the subject.. 2. The name of the chart was hand edited to show that it can be done. 3. The subject, spouse and title boxes were narrowed just to show that it can be done. 4. The 10 minutes of VCF work includes all the items in these notes. 5. You may assume that these techniques work for any reasonably sized sheet of paper. 6. It will be easier to work with the Zoom-to-Fit menu entry invoked. Import an external pic or two. 7. See other posts in this forum for details of the techniques needed. Enjoy the results of VCF editing to get your charts done your way,
  18. Error Message = End of List

    It seems that you used the Save to File option to output your chart. I always use the View in VCF option. View in VCF lets you view and edit the chart and then save it to disk. I never output any chart directly to disk. The largest descendant chart I have ever successfully done was 4 generations with a bit over 600 people (see http://LAgenealogy.net/Talbot.aspx). I moved components about in VCF and reduced the size to about 8.5 x 200 inches. I generated one with more generations and about 2000 people. It generated OK, but my computer was too slow to move components about, It took over a minute of run time to move one selection of components. I guessed that I had over two thousand moves to make and gave up on that huge chart. I generated several smaller charts instead. I had 3 gigs of main memory back then (2 gigs now). My data base is comparable to yours with over 87,000 people and 13,000 images. My first guess at the cause of your problem is insufficient memory. Have you tried to generate with only TMG/VCF running? Can you give more detail on the nature of your chart and machine. How does it compare with the 600+ persons chart linked to, above? To make a long story short. I don't know, these are just thoughts. Best wishes and good luck,
  19. 5 generation ancestor chart

    Now and then you run across a family that many cousins would enjoy. The attached chart is such an example. All of the children of one family married children of another family, TMG gives an option to display siblings, but siblings are displayed for everyone. This often results in a huge and confusing ancestor chart, when all that you want are the siblings of the subject and their spouses. The standard TMG ancestor chart with siblings does not show spouses. 1. Generate and edit an ancestor chart of one of the desired siblings as per the Gen.Patton chart beginning this topic. 2. Generate a two generation descendant chart of either parent of the siblings. 3. Delete the connector lines to all siblings and their spouses. Note that many of the lines can be selected and deleted in groups. 4. Arrange the siblings in a column and their spouses in another adjacent column as seen in the attached final product. 5. You will note that some siblings boxes are larger than their spouses. Simply add blank lines to the smaller of the spouse boxes to make the box sizes compatible. 6. Note the total height of the sibling spouse column on the modified descendant chart, You will need to open that much space on the destination ancestor chart. 7. Use diagram measurements to make the ancestor chart height 11 inches. Then group select the bottom, maternal ancestors and jog them down to open the chart for the siblings with spouses from the descendant chart to fit. 8. Copy and past the sibling couples from the descendant chart to the ancestor chart. Move them to the desired location, add any explanatary text and trim the chart. This took less than an hour to do and is easier done that said. Best wishes,
  20. Another way of displaying this complex family would be with a single one page composite of VCF Descendant box charts. The attached chart was originally a "Yours, Mine and Ours" composite of 2 Descendant Charts. To add a level of complexity to your scenario a fake spouse and child were added to make it a "Yours, Mine, Ours and Theirs" Chart. Selected boxes were colored, with explanatary text, to improve clarity. The grandparents were then added from other charts to gild the lily. Editing the original YMO chart into a YMOT chart took only a few minutes. The original YMO chart took a little over an hour to construct (after practice). Note that the VCF chart fits on a single letter size page. TMG reports would take several pages and would not have the clarity, pictures nor sizzle. Techniques for accomplishing the individual operatios required to make this example chart may be found in the VCF forum under topics by Virginia, Robin and me if needed. VCF hand editing can seem to accomplish miracles. Best wishes, chart errata: Parents and descendants of Henry Watkins with Amelie Gounin should read Children of Henry Watkins with Amelie Gounin.
  21. Comparison of various Genealogy Programmes

    Thanks for this interesting topic. After browsing the links provided, most every genealogy program could produce ancestor and descendant charts. I saw no mention of any having the ability for the user to hand edit charts, such as VCF. Most programs can build, display and allow editing genealogical data, acceptably (some, so little better than others). If I had to pick the most important feature of a genealogy program, to me, it would be providing the ability of editing charts (like with VCF). The second most important feature is the ability to edit reports with a word processor. I have never seen a standard computer generated chart or report that was exactly the way that I wanted it to be. Is this hand editing ability only of prime importance to me? Does any other genealogy program have these charting features? This feature seems to be ignored in all of the reviews. Is it ignored because the ability is so rare in existing products, or is it because so few care? Thanks again,
  22. Win 64bit and external exhibit freeze

    Terry's suggestion is a good one. I saw no mention of "Verify File Integrity" in your list of File Maintenance actions. VFI gives you the opportunity to fix any bad links to external exhibits. To use it, run VFI, it will ask for additional folder names where external exhibits might be found. Enter all folder addresses where you keep exhibit files (you need not mention the default folder specified in your preferences). VFI will search these folders for each exhibit file name and repair addresses when necessary. At the end of VFI's run, it will display a report containing the number of exhibits not found, if any. If this number is not zero, you forgot to mention an exhibit folder(s) (or those exhibit(s) are truly missing) and may cause problems for you. If so, ask for a procedure to find what file names are missing from which IDs, in this forum. It is suggested that you consruct a text file containing all of your exhibit folder names. Then, each time you run VFI, you need only copy and paste the folder addresses. Good luck,
  23. The Future for TMG

    Still a loyal but worried fan of TMG. Have been in the TMG fold since early in V.4 (1999). Having been into computers since 1961, I have never seen the chaos TMG has faced during the life of TMG 7. Microsoft has churned out 2 different operating systems with little thought to quality, "upward compatibility" and its users (I paid extra to not be "upgraded to Vista" on my last computer purchase). FoxPro has pulled the plug. With that triple snake bite, there can be little surprise that TMG plans have been greatly adversly affected. Patiently waiting and hoping,
  24. Automatic Relation Tag Problem

    I agree with Jim. When I had a similar problem, a few years ago, the cause was that a parent of an ancestor was not marked as primary (three of my grandparents are 4th to 6th cousins and several of their ancestors are cousins). Good luck,
  25. Shadows missing on box charts

    Have never seen this problem and know of no way for the user to cause it. Since you have already verified the chart definition enabling shadows, there seems to be only two possibilities left. Either a computer glitch has disabled shadows or a glitch has changed the shadow color to white. To see which, in VCF draw a large rectangle around any person-box, color it any dark color, use the menu to send your rectangle to the back where the original person-box is visible and note whether there is a white shadow or not. You now have a detail to tell tech support or you could just reinstall TMG. Good luck, please let us know how it turns out,
×