Andy Hatchett

I might be in error, but I believe that the TMG-L Mailing List was established on RootsWeb long before they were bought by Ancestry. The only other connection I know of is that Ancestry is a client of TMG as Ancestry licenses TMG's GenBridge technology.

IIRC, It was something that came up in a discussion at the Knoxville FGS last August. I know I didn't just make it up. This can be categorized as fan fiction. Where do you come up with such things? It would be helpful if people limit their discussions to things that they actually know. There is considerable fiction in a number of recent posts regarding the status of TMG8 and the reasons for the delay.

Seems I heard somewhere that one of the Microsoft tools used to build TMG was supposed to be updated and MS was late getting that update out and that that set the TMG schedule back a bit.

Just a refresher for those joining late... Descendancy Narrative of TIt Master Genealogist Version 1 tmg was born in Jul 1993. It died in Oct 1996 at age 3 years. 1 Version 2 tmg was born in Oct 1996. It died in May 1997 at age 7 months. 1.1 Version 3 tmg was born in May 1997. It died in May 1999 at age 2 years. 1.1.1 Version 4 tmg was born in May 1999. It died on 22 May 2002 at age 3 years. 1.1.1.1 Version 5 tmg was born on 22 May 2002. It died on 21 Dec 2004 at age 2 years, 6 months and 29 days. 1.1.1.1.1 Version 6 tmg was born on 21 Dec 2004.1 It died on 28 Dec 2007 at age 3 years and 7 days. 1.1.1.1.1.1 Version 7 tmg was born on 28 Dec 2007. So the wait has been a bit longer than between version 6 and version 7 but not outrageously so.

It will be released when it is ready- whenever that is; That is all we know and all we are likely to know before the actual release.

How do you know there is a lack of progress? All we know is what we are told- and one thing you can bet we won't be told is a definitive statement about when the product will, or will not, be released.

[edited... jeb] The simply fact is that GEDCOM itself can't handle thefull output of *any* modern genealogy program- and hasn't been able to for the last five years or so. The wait for version 8 really hasn't been that much longer than for some of the past version so I don't understand all the angst. In fact, I find it all rather puzzling!

What more can be said about Unicode, FoxPro, or Version 8? It has all been said- over and over ad nausaum. If you want to comminicate with them directly, you can always call or e-mail them. I've always found them to be most helpful.

When Bob skips a a pretty major show (Knoxville) to stay home and swat bugs- yes, they are working hard. As just a user like yourself I cannot speak officially for Wholly Genes, but the new word processor library has been mentioned by Wholly Genes in a preview of TMG 8, so it is expected as a part of that new version. Rumor has it that this is a complete rewrite of the word processing part of the software, so my crystal ball expects it to only be part of the new version. Since software development is such an uncertain activity, in the past Wholly Genes has not wished to give any timelines on new versions. But Wholly Genes has made it clear that they are painfully aware of the pressing need for this new version, so I expect they are working very hard on it.

Allocating resources to import and export support of GEDCOM is, imho, an utter waste of time. As more and more modern genealogy programs develop more bells and whistles GEDCOM becomes less and less relevant - Just look at the BetterGEDCOM Wiki that was just introduced. As to the FoxPro issue... Once version 8 is out the door that can be started to be looked at, assuming that it isn't already being looked at. Once v8 is out it will, if past release history is followed, probably be at least 3-4 years before we see version 9. Perhaps even longer as TMG will be on a new platform- and yes, I'm confident that there will be a version 9.