Terry Reigel

Duplicate places in the Master Place List remain until you consolidate them by Optimizing your Project. Do that from the File > Maintenance menu.

Jonsops, My first suggestion would be to enter them all a Witnesses in a single Tag. That would seem especially appropriate for families with children. But if that doesn't work in your situation perhaps the next best approach is to enter one Tag and use the Copy Tag command on the Add menu to make duplicates. You can then change the ID#s in the copies to move them to the other people. I find the Copy Tag command so useful I have added it as a button on my custom toolbar.

If you don't want it to be the main image for a person, you can attach to in event instead of the person. Open the event Tag and click the camera icon at the upper right side of the Tag Entry screen. It might seem natural to add it to the Death or Burial Tag. To attach an image to two people, attach it to a Tag in which both people are entered. However this cannot be the Death Tag and is not likely to be a Burial Tag, so you would have to use another Tag for it. I created a custom Tag Type for images with a Sentence of only [:NP:] so the normal period that would end the output of the Tag doesn't show in Narrative reports. I attach all my images to these custom Tag Types so I can use the Sort Date to position the image as I like within a narrative. This is useful if you output as a web site using Second Site, especially when you have long narratives for a person. You may find another approach better suited if you prefer non-narrative style output.

Stan, There is nothing wrong with citing multiple sources if each contributes information to the tag, whether that information agrees, disagrees, or overlaps with different parts coming from different sources. Depending on the nature of the story, I've composited a narrative from different sources, or quoted a story then adding comments that conflict in whole or in part from other sources. Family stories have a way of getting "amplified" over the generations. There is often a kernel of truth in them, but details often get "improved" with time. I'm more likely to directly quote an old story if the language itself is interesting, otherwise I generally paraphrase it. In the latter case, if it seems mostly correct, I generally interweave details from other sources. If there seem to be substantial questions about some or all of it, I more likely quote or paraphrase it, then offer the conflicting information. For an example of this last you might look at the section "West Point and Medical School" in my page on Dr. Joshua Cobb on my website.

mtnbluedatab, In my view, the book is your source. Period. If it doesn't say what it's sources are there is no basis for you to assert what they were. But you are able to find some of them, I think you should then cite them directly - they really have nothing to do with the book and there is no reason to make any cross-reference to it. Then, since you believe the book is based on that source and the citation is in effect redundant, you should no longer cite the book, but instead right-click on that citation and "Exclude" it so it will no longer appear in the footnotes, but will be visible to you so you can see your original source.

Pat, I assume the issue is that you have years only. Since the double-date only applies January through March 25, seems to me they can only be applied when you specify a date within those months. Outside of them the double date is not correct.

Daryl, You can open the second instance the same way you did the first - from a desktop icon or the start menu. Or, you can open it from the instance you already have open, by choosing the Project you want to open from the File > Open menu or the bottom of the File menu. When you do the latter, when asked if you want to close the current project, just answer No and you will have both open. When you open two instances you can view the same or different Projects in the two. If you open the same Project in both, TMG will prevent you from opening the exact same data entry screen. For example, if you try to open the same Tag for the same person in both instances, you will only be allowed to open a "read-only" version in the second.

Stan, First, if you want to copy people from one Data Set to another and then merge the duplicates, I recommend you copy all people you intend to copy who are linked to each other by marriage or as parent/child at one time. This preserves those links, which are otherwise broken. It might be helpful to create a temporary flag in the "to" data set and use it with Accents to color-code those you have still to work on. You might make the values Y for "yes, merged" and N for "no, not merged." Create it with the values Y,N, so everyone already in the Data Set will take the default value of Y. Then change it to N,Y so the default becomes N, which will then be applied to everyone you copy in. Then set Accents to a bright color for N. Then you can easily see those yet to be worked on in the various windows, in the Project Explorer, and in the Picklist if you have it set to the enhanced mode. On the other hand, I urge you to consider not doing that at all if there are lots of duplicate people, but just opening the two data sets in separate instances of TMG and copying the new information from one to the other by cut and paste. If you haven't seen them, the articles on my website on copying people and merging may be helpful.

You're welcome, Rosanna. On that I have no idea, I'm afraid.

You enter the information in Preferences > Current Project Options > General.

Daryl, So far as I know there is no way to mark a particular case so it won't be found again. You can of course adjust the settings in Options to change the way a particular test is run, but that changes the results for everyone, not just an individual case.

Stan, Michael has already answered that there is no built-in side-by-side viewing capability. But just to be clear, when you open two instances of TMG you can view the same or different Projects in the two, or the same or different Data Sets in the same Project. You can even view the same person in the same Data Set in both if wanted to. The only restriction is you can't open the same data entry screen for the same Tag, Source, Repository, etc. in both. If you try, TMG will ask if you want to open one of them as "read only."

Stan, The wonders indeed. Looking further, I find that if you limit the search to books, the two editions come up together and there are no other items shown. But if you search "all departments" the result displays many books, but the second edition comes up in the third group, which it says are titles that don't include the term "primer for the" even though that is part of the title as listed there!

Stan, If you search books for my name, or for the title, you should now get both the first and second editions listed, with the second edition - where my offer is - listed first. Here is a direct link to the second edition. There are different ISBNs for the two editions - the first edition is 978-0980165203 and the second is 978-0980165210. All the prior offers on Amazon.ca are under the ISBN for the first edition - the one for the second edition was not listed on Amazon.ca until I added it yesterday. So I assume the prior offers were all for the first edition, though I have no way of knowing for sure. It occurs to me that there may be difference in the VAT between my offer on Amazon.com and the one on Amazon.ca because of the difference in sale price. I don't know enough about how that works to know for sure.

Stan, Sorry but I don't know enough about the details of the import process to help with your latest question. I was hoping Jim would respond as he is the most knowledgeable about that. I want to thank you again for the heads-up about my book on Amazon.ca. After much struggling I now have my offer for the second edition listed there, so users going to that site will see the current edition and a much more reasonable price. Unfortunately, because of the lower shipping fees collected from Amazon.ca I had to raise the selling price compared to what it is on Amazon.com, and I then pay commission on that amount, further reducing what I receive. To get close to what I receive from Amazon.com the total price paid by the customer on Amazon.ca is about a dollar more than if ordered on Amazon.com, so I Canadian users may still prefer to use Amazon.com. But in any case it's a much better deal that what was offered on Amazon.ca before.

Stan, There are guidelines for usage of the Standard Tag Types in the "Reminder" field. To view it from the Master Tag Type List you have to select the Tag Type, click Edit, and go to the Other tab of the Tag Type Definition screen. To see it from an individual Tag you open the Reminder window with the square button next to the name of the Tag Type - the one with the light bulb image. As I recall Reminders are by default set to open automatically, but can be set to open only manually with a setting in Preferences. As to collections of custom Tag Types, some are listed on my website in the Customizing Tags section. Some are discussed in the Sentences section of this Forum. They are often discusses on the TMG List on RootsWeb. I can't recall another collection being posted.

Thanks for the link, Stan. I didn't realize that those crooks were offering the out-dated first edition of my book on the Canadian version of Amazon for such ridiculous prices. Not sure I can do anything about that but I'll see. Clearly it's a better deal to buy the current edition on on the US version of Amazon.

Stan, Where do you see $131 for Primer? Don't be fooled by the over-priced used copies of the outdated first edition. Look at the second edition on Amazon here. Choose the first offer under "new" for delivery other than in Canada, and the second for delivery in Canada. Amazon won't ship to Canada for reasons unknown to me, but if you use the second link I will. The price is $24.95 US. Shipping to Canada is $16.95, or at least was last time I shipped an order there.

Roy, ID numbers in TMG are not intended to have any meaning, and there no automatic means to create numbering such as you describe. The only way to do that is manually, one person at a time, using the Tools > Renumber People command. You would of course have to move anyone who already has a number you want to use to a different number before it can be reassigned. One of the issues with such a system is there can be many people who will not logically fit into a system as you describe, such as spouses of descendants, ancestors of spouses, siblings of spouses, other spouses of spouses, children of spouses by other spouses, and unrelated people, to mention the most obvious examples. In my view it is best to leave the ID#s alone, except perhaps for a few key people whose ID#s you might want to remember.

Jim, I have the same experience - the "auto maximize feature" only happens when clicking on the title bar of the preview screen. I think the reason I've seen it so often is I often want to move the preview aside so I can see both it and some other window, so of course I click on the title bar to move it.

Virginia, No, I'm running Windows 7, and have probably been seeing this since the new report writer came out with TMG 8.0. I thought it was an over-sensitive mouse causing intended double-clicks until now.

You're right, Ralph. I've been seeing this for a long time and though I was just managing to double-click on the title bar. But it only takes a single click to maximize the preview window when you use the sequence you describe. Thanks for figuring it out. I often do that trying to relocate the preview window and get the results you describe.

Daryl, Assuming the Exhibits in question are attached to people, and not to, say events, and assuming you have some way to identify the people who served in the armed forces, you can do that with the List of People report. Use a filter starting with: # of Exhibits .... = Equals .... 0 .... AND then add a term identifying those who served in the military. For example, you might add term looking for a Mil-Serv tag if you use one, like: Mil-Serv... .... # of Tags .... > Is greater than .... 0 .... END

tauciti, What specific data is missing on the charts? Is it specified to be included on the Data Types tab of the report Options?

You're welcome, Joe.