Terry Reigel

As Paul says, you don't have duplicate people, but only duplicate names. The Picklist and Project Explorer are lists of names, not lists of people. This makes it possible to find people by nicknames, alternate spellings, married names, etc. if you have created name tags for those names. If the names are actually the same, you will want to delete one of them, after making sure that all source citations and any other details have been copied to the remaining tag. Duplicate names are most often caused by merging duplicate people in your data set.

You're welcome. I figured you would, from the questions you asked. Terry

In my opinion, yes. I strongly suggest you merge them into a single data set. A usual reason is to allow the people in both to appear in reports and charts, but you say that really doesn't matter to you. Another good reason is that as you get more comfortable with TMG and start to customize tag types, source types, etc., keeping those customizations current in separate data sets is a major pain. When you merge them, all the duplicate people will show up twice. Then you need to merge the two copies of each of those people, keeping only one copy of each tag. For details, see my article on merging people. Or, you can delete the duplicates and fix the links, as mentioned below. Yes, it's easy to do, but not quite like you are thinking. Each import is always into a separate DS. So keep your imports, and use Data Set Manager to merge the two data sets. See my article on merging projects and data sets for details. Merge first, then either delete the duplicate people and fix the links, or merge the duplicate people. If the data is identical for them in both data sets, the deleting the people is probably simplest. When you merge two DSs, what actually happens is one is appended to the other (see article referenced above), with the second getting the next available numbers. The one that "remains unchanged" is the one that's appended - that will make more sense when you actually try it. After the move use Tools > Renumber People to fix the numbers if you have to, but you may not if you choose which duplicate person to delete carefully. Keeping separate data sets doesn't reduce the size of the Picklist, unless you filter it. I'd suggest creating a "Related-by" flag and using it to color code the lines, using the Accent feature. That makes it easy to see who is in each line in the Picklist (Expanded version), Project Explorer, and all the views. This is illustrated in my article on Accents and details for one such method are given in the linked article on "Related-by" flags. You could even filter the Picklist with this flag, but I don't think you will find you need to when you see how the Accents help.

Welcome! Feel free - that's what we're here for. This is a common misconception. You don't "switch" data sets, nor do you "view" data sets. Rather, you view people. The person you are viewing is in a data set, but the next person you view may be in a different data set. So, you "switch" data sets by navigating to a person who is in that data set. Since you can only see people in a single data set in the Details, Children, and Siblings screens, naviagating by double clicking in those screens won't get you to another data set. But the Project Explorer, Focus Group, and Picklist all show people in all data sets (unless filtered) so you can use them. Or, you can switch using the "Find person by ID#" function. Similarly, you can "view" mulitiple data sets in the Project Explorer, Focus Group, and Picklist screens. The Find Duplicate People function can also work with multiple data sets.

And it works as you expect now? Yes, exactly.

Yes, use the List of Citations report, with a filter of: Source No. = [?] When you run the report, you will be prompted to enter the actual source number, or you can click on the search button and find it. This way you can use the same report for different sources. If you think you will will use this report often, add it to a button on the custom toolbar.

Yes, the dates look good - I don't think they are the issue. You don't need an "age button" but you do need the age variable in the sentence, like the one in the Sample project. It is not included in the standard sentence for the Census tag. If you want to include it you would need to modify either the specific census tags where it should appear, or the sentence in the Census tag type, which would then apply to all census tags. I'll repeat my caution that the age produced this way is the one computed based on your primary birth tag, not the age recorded in the census. So be clear on your objective in including it. Most users, if they include the age at all, want the age recorded in the census. The age variable can't give you that.

You're welcome. Terry

How are the dates entered? That is, are both entered with day, month, and year? The [A] variable only produces an age if there is enough information to calculate it accurately.

You're welcome, Rich. Terry

Welcome, Rich. First, that sentence doesn't produce that output. The actual sentence is: [P] appeared on the census at age [A] The age, as you surmise, comes from the [A] variable. The age variables compute the age based on the date in primary birth group tag and the date in the current tag. John's primary birth tag is dated 11 Oct 1812, and the census tag 9 Sep 1850, thus the age of 37. Note that the age produced is unrelated to what the census may have said about his age, although in this case it is the same.

As you have learned, you cannot easily just delete a large group of people, But there is a way -- Move them to another data set, then either delete that data set, or save it as a separate project if you think you might every want them for something. Here's how: 1. Open Data Set Manager (File menu), and Add a new Data Set. Give it any name you like. 2. Collect everyone you want to delete in the Focus Group, as you have done. 3. Use Move Person(s) (Edit menu) to move those in the FG to your new Data Set. This removes them from your main Data Set, and places them in the new one. If you really want to delete them, open Data Set Manager, and delete the new Data Set. If you think it's possible you might someday want them, it's probably best to save them in a separate project. Do do that, use Copy Project (File menu) to copy your main project (you have to close it first). Then, open your main project and delete the new data set in that project. You could also delete your main data set from the copy, if you like.

You're welcome.

The Journal, by default, places the primary birth, marriage, death, and burial tags in the first paragraph. Then all other tags follow in sort date order in a separate paragraph. Is this what you are seeing? This follows the style guide of the major journals. But if you want all tags to sort simply in sort date order, as the other narratives do, you can achieve this under Options: 1. On the General tab, change to "Custom format" under Style. 2. On the Miscellaneous tab, un-check "BMDB in a separate paragraph."

The Family Group sheet doesn't use Sentences - they are used only for narrative style reports. Thus there is no way in FGSs to have witnesses to a tag appear. If the FGS is important to you, as opposed to narrative reports, the Father-God tag will print, provided you change the "Parents" option on the Miscellaneous tab to All variations. You could also create a custom event tag for GodMother and GodFather, with both them and the child entered as Principals, and that would print if you choose the options on the Tags section to include it.

The license allows you to install on up to 3 computers, provided that not more than one copy is in use at any one time -- designed for situations exactly like yours. There are several ways to use the same Project on several computers: 1. Keep the files on one computer, say your laptop. When using your desktop, access the files via a LAN. This of course would require that your laptop be turned on and connected to the the other computer by a LAN when you are using it there. 2. Backup and restore. Each time you move from one computer to the other, make a backup, copy the backup to the other computer, and restore it there. This requires care to not enter data on the the "wrong" computer, otherwise you could get the two copies out of synch. But has the advantage that no on-going connection is required between the two computers. You could copy the project files themselves between the two computers, perhaps by use of the Windows "briefcase" - I've not tried that. The advantage of the backup and restore process is that the backup compresses all the 20 to 30 files into a single backup file which is easier to transfer.

You're welcome, Mark. I'm glad you found the site helpful. Thanks for the kind words. Terry

After you create a new project as Barbara describes, open that project, and make a backup of it. This compresses the many files that make up the project into a single smaller file. Send the backup to your relative, who will then need to Restore (not Open or Import) it in order to read it.

There a couple of articles on my website that might help. There is a general discussion of sentence structures and also a list of sentence variables and operators.

Or, make two tag types - one for those you wanted to print and one for those you don't.

Dick, Resolving OO issues aside, there are a number of solutions avialable to Word users to open files with larger numbers of endnotes. From some experiments with my own data using an Ancestor Journal, I found I can open files containing many more notes by using other file types: Using Word for Windows v8: Largest file: 6 generations, 270 people, 4162 endnotes Using "combined" endnotes (combines all citations for a tag into one note: Largest file: 11 generations, 1122 people, 4705 endnotes Using Word for Windows v2.x: Largest file: 10 generations, 874 people, 10,046 endnotes Using WordPerfect v8+ or RTF (then opening in Word) Largest file: 12 generations, 1319 people, 13,750 endnotes (not really the largest possible - I ran out of test data) Using other file types may cause some issues. I understand that the Word v2.x format does not support all the features supported by later versions. I don't understand which, if any, TMG features might be effected. Simple narrative text is not so far as I can see. I did get some formatting issues with WordPerfect then importing into Word. If they can't be avoided, the could be fixed once in Word.

That makes sense to me -- if the tag is not to be considered in the report, it should be totally ignored, I'd think. So including it fixes the problem?

Sorry, Mark, but the Pedigree Report cannot currently be saved to a Word file. The Compressed Pedigree can however - you might see if that meets your needs.

I don't see why it should happen. I've got your post on this topic on TMG-L marked to look at again, but haven't gotten back to test and try to figure out what might be going on. Maybe later today...

You're welcome. Yes, provided you have created a name tag for the God-Mother for the desired name, such as the standard Name-Mar tag. In the Add Witness screen (the one in which you added the God-Mother as a witness and chose the role) at the top right is a drop-down list that shows all the name variations you have created for that witness. Choose the variation you want to appear in the report.