Terry Reigel

The marriage tag won't print if it doesn't exist, so the simplest solution is to not enter a marriage tag. If the couple had children, you can still create a Family Group Sheet because they and the children meet the definition of a family.

If you want to create a "Partners" or other marriage-like tag in the marriage group, you can exclude it from the FGS by going to the Tags tab of Options, choosing Selected tags, and un-select your "Partners" tag.

I have created a Focus Group which I wish to use as a Gedcom export. I have started the export Gedcom Wizard but the option to use the Focus Group is greyed out.  What am I doing wrong?

Step 4 has two primary options - "Current Focus Person" and the data set. Only when you click on the second one do the three choice under it - "All People," "Selected people in the Project Explorer," and "People in the Focus Group" become available. I suspect the problem is you didn't choose the second of the two primary choices.

The black dot simply means that you have posted a message in that topic.

How, using Master Genealogist can I start at 1641/2 and move forward for several unrelated families when the first question it asks of me is to enter my 21st century identity?

As Paul says, you can just Cancel out of the new project wizard and enter your starting person manually. On the other hand, no one will know if you "fib" and enter someone from 1641/2 when you are asked to enter yourself.

You don't say, but it sounds like you are using the Focus Group to control who is exported. That's a good method. Assuming you already have a FG with the target person and his or her ancestors, now do this in the FG screen:

To add Siblings:

1. Click the "Select All" button to select everyone in the FG. Now, find the "target person" and hold Ctrl while clicking on him/her to un-select just that one person. Do the same for that person's spouse. (this avoids adding the children of the target person in the following steps.)

2. In the Add Others box, uncheck all options but Descendants, and check Descendants. Set the number of generations to one.

3. Click the Add Others button - you now have added all the siblings of the ancestors to the FG.

To add the spouses of the siblings:

4. Click the "Select All" button to select everyone in the FG again.

5. Uncheck Descendants, and check Spouses.

6. Click the Add Others button - you have now added all the spouses of the siblings.

That should include everyone you want - use the FG to control the export wizard.

As you have discovered, the Export Wizard in TMG 5/6 does not allow for use of a filter directly, like TMG4 and before did. There are two ways to do what you want to do in the new version:

1. Use the Focus Group to specify who is to be exported. Open the FG, add your starting person (by right-clicking on his or her name, and choosing "Add to Focus Group" or by using the Add Individual button on the FG screen). To add descendants, select that person, check Descendants in the Add Others box, set the number of generations if desired, and click the Add Others button.

If you want to add the spouses of the decendants, click the Select All button, clear the Descendants check, check the Spouses box, and click the Add Others button again.

Now go to the Export Wizard, and specify that the Focus Group should be used.

2. If you prefer to use a filter, open the Project Explorer, click the Filter button (the one with the funnel), and construct your filter. Unfortunately, the PE filter does not allow you to add spouses, so you need to use a more complex filter if you want to include them. Once you have completed the filter, in the PE screen, select everyone (click on the first person, scroll to the last, and hold shift while you click on the last).

Now go to the Export Wizard, and specify that Selected persons in the Project Explorer should be used.

Judy,

You cannot print "primary only" and also print witnessed events. In my opinion the "primary only" option is not useful and should be ignored. Instead, create alternate tag types for those events that you do not want to print, and then use the "Selected" Tag Types option to control which tags get printed. For example, if you have alternate birth and death tags which you want to exclude from the report, create Birth-Alt and Death-Alt tags, and use them for that data. Then don't select those tag types in list of "Selected" tag types in the report.

For more on this, see my article on primary tags.

It would be helpful if you could call up a report which listed source entries but there is no such option under Tools.

Reports are found on the "Reports" menu, not on the "Tools" menu.

By "source entries" I assume you mean citations to a source, and not a list of sources themselves. If so, the List of Citations report will give you what you want, I think. If not, please describe more specifically what you are trying to do and we can help.

You're welcome.

You can't exactly delete them, but there is a pretty simple solution - move then to another Data Set, then either delete that data set, keep it where it is, or save it in another Project.

To move the people:

1. In the Data Set Manager (File menu), add a new temporary Data Set. Use the Add button, and give it a name.

2. Back on the main screen, use Move Person(s) (Edit menu) to move everyone in the Focus Group to that new Data Set.

Now you have some choices. You can:

1) go back to Data Set Manager, and delete the temporary Data Set. Everyone in it will be gone. Or,

2) you can just leave the second data set there. I don't see much point in this, although you could disable it so it's not visible. Or,

3) you could copy the Project, and in the copy remove all data sets but the one with the moved people - thus you would have a copy of them all saved in case you should every decide you care about them. Then in the original project, delete the temporary data set as in #1 above.

Your suggestion worked! "No threshold" had been set, but the "Include Blank Surety" had not. Thank you for your help.

You're welcome, Vernard. Glad we finally found the problem.

I have been able to reproduce the problem and will send a copy of my database along with a sequence of steps to help them reproduce the problem. Let's hope it can be fixed.

Bob, I'd be happy to try and replacate the issue with your project and instructions, and will get it to the developers if I can. Please contact me using the "Contact Terry" link on the bottom of the page on my website - link below.

Vernard,

Be sure that the "Surety" settings on the General tab of options are set to "No Threshold" and the "Include Blank surety" setting is checked. If the citations on the descendants are lower than the surety settings on the report, they will appear to not exist and I think can cause the error you see.

When I export my TMG file as a GEDCOM, all of my exhibit pathnames are turned to UPPERCASE. Such as, the path that's saved in TMG as "c:\genealogy\photos\SMITH-JaneDOE.jpg" appears as "FILE C:\GENEALOGY\PHOTOS\SMITH-JANEDOE.JPG" in the .GED file.

I understand that some operating systems are case sensitive when it comes to paths and file names. But in what context would you be transferring information via GEDCOM to such a system when the path names on your system would be used? I'm failing to understand how the path to the file on your system is if any use to a Unix or LINIX server.

Thanks Terry,  that will do for my little task. 

You're welcome.

Associated in what way? As author, editor, complier, or the like? Or do you mean persons who have tags in which the source is cited?

I don't see a way to include the Data Set number in the ID# display, but you can add the "Data Set ID" in a separate column (on the Output Columns tab of Options) to achieve the same thing.

Thanks for the reply Terry. Told ya I was green to this genealogy business.

You're welcome. Actually, I think that's a pretty insightful question - I expect many experienced users have never actually thought about it.

BTW, great website you have there. It's already saved me from posting some more dumb questions.

Thanks - I'm glad you've found it helpful. But don't worry about "dumb questions" -- there are no dumb questions if you don't know the answers. All questions are welcome.

Is this correct or should I cite where my copy of it is?

Yes.

I'm not sure there's one right answer to this. You could:

1. Cite the certificate - after all, that's what you actually have. Even then, it was issued by some agency, so I think it's reasonable to list them in the source description, and entering them as a repository in the standard source types for a birth record does that, seems to me. You could, if you want, add in the comments section that you hold the certificate. Or,

2. Cite the public record - after all, you have a certified notice from a public agency saying there is such a record. In that case, clearly that agency should be listed as the repository.

Don't know that it matters a lot - I'd decide one way or the other to be consistent, then make sure the source notes read consistently with your decision.

In these kinds of cases do you scan the doc in question and attach the image to the source using a internal or external exhibit?

I don't, but I can see the value in doing so. Among the merits are you have the record easily available for reference any place you have your computer. And you have the ability to include it in websites made with Second Site. I see including images of sources in such websites as a very neat idea, though perhaps a lot of work.

Someone whose actually done it could offer some suggestions on the mechanics.

I have recently run across a book that has information for a subset in my dataset, but since I have one dataset instead of a lot of smaller ones because of kinship ties, the information I have found does not apply to the vast majority of the people in the dataset.  I just wish I could site this new source once instead of having to do it perhaps 200 times.

OK, I can understand that. But how do you know it has the same information you have already recorded unless you go through every tag you have and compare the information there to what's in the book? If you don't verify that, I don't see the point in adding the cites - you don't know that the book actually supports what is in your data set. Or have I missed something?

It seems to me that you would have the same problem doing a global citation of the entire dataset.  What's the difference?

Ray,

I suppose the difference is that I can only see one reason to use the current Global citation - to cite a file you have received from someone and just imported. I would only see doing this before merging that imported data set with a working data set, thus everything in it comes from the received file. I can't envison how this can apply to a sub-set of the data set.

Ken,

I agree that the source issue is an important one, but not one, in my mind, that requires keeping the data separate.

You could record the sources as provided to you and mark the individuals with a flag, but that would not be my recommendation. One issue with this approach is that if you should include some of these people in a report you create, it would appear that you had examined the sources and agree with the interpretation shown. I don't think that's what you would want.

There are at least a couple of alternatives. In my view, the "purest" is to cite only the file or other media which you received as the source. Then, in the CD for that citation, include a note showing that your source cited whatever you received. I generally do this by putting something like "..., citing Pawlet town records, vol 1" or whatever the source you are given says.

There are a couple of problems with this method. One is that it's a lot of work to do, especially if you are importing a well-sourced file from another researcher. The other is that your source notes can get pretty long and repetitious, especially if the descriptions of your received sources is detailed - you can't very well get a "full footnote" for you indirect source the first time and short one thereafter.

There is another approach that I'd think would work especially well if you are importing a file with sources attached. That is to modify each of those sources by adding some sort of disclaimer... maybe something like "cited my Cousin Bob, not seen by author." You could do this after the import, but before merging the imported data with your own. You could put the disclaimer in the Comments field on the Source Definition, and make sure the [COMMENTS] source element is included in each source type you use.

Maybe I am just looking in the wrong place in the help file but I cannot find anywhere that tells me how to format variables.

 

I assume it was the same as text and so set with the italics setting of [iTAL:][:ITAL] around the outside of it and the only thing that ended up in italics was the first "("

Using the font formatting codes around sentence variables is not recommended because the result varies depending upon where you send the report. I've found you get the result you describe if you send the report to screen or printer, but you get the result you were expecting if you send it to a word processor file.

I'll report it to the developers, Peggy. While what I see isn't as bad as your case, it does seem a bit off, and your experience is clearly non-standard.

I am very hesitant to include these branches in my regular family tree because I fear they will only clutter things up.

I'm hard pressed to understand how adding a few dozen people will "clutter up" the main data set.

Is there a way to add these branches into the family tree but still maintain the integrity of the main database?

Yes, you could place them in a separate data set in your main project, or in a separate project. That would keep them entirely separate.

I was thinking something like adding a new dataset for each of these family branches. If I do that, is it then possible to hide that dataset or delete it entirely in the future should I decide I do not need it anymore?

Yes, you can disable one or more data sets, which effectively hides them.

What will happen to the parent/child links if for example the parent is in one dataset and the child is in another?

There won't be any - the whole idea of separate data sets is to keep the data entirely separate. So you can't link people in one data set to those in another.

Just wondering if someone else have done this already and if so how they did it.

While you could put these lines in a separate data set, I'd strongly urge against it. I see little advantage, and many disadvantages. People in different data sets cannot be linked. Things like sources, repositories, customized tag types, and customized source types all have to be duplicated, and there is no easy way to copy them between data sets. I put everyone in a single data set. I'd only consider separating them if your current project is approaching the limits of your hardware (a consideration at around 50,000 people), and then you need to use separate projects, not datasets, which is even more of a bother. For more on projects and data sets, see my article on that topic on my website - link below.