Terry Reigel

Tom,

The only way I know is to create a Kinship report, send it to Word, and delete everyone but the listing of first cousins. It's not that hard this way.

My mother, turning 93 this week, has collected an enormous amount of information in TMG 8. While none of my generation have her genealogical bent, we are very interested in capturing the fruit of her labor (e.g., importing into a currently supported program or reporting to a very large PDF).

 

I have a few questions that perhaps some of you can help me with:

• Is the best first step to move to TMG 9? If so, is it sill possible to buy a license for TMG 9 by contacting harry.goegebeur@genea.be? If so, is there a cost and does that take long?
• I have browsed some of the TMG 8 reporting, but don't see a report that provides a comprehensive listing of information, images, etc. Is there something like that in TMG 8 or 9?
• Is there any good, currently supported genealogy application that accepts TMG 8 or 9 data for import?

Andy,

Since no one is ready to continue her work now, the need to upgrade to TMG9 for your use is not really there. However I suspect you will have better luck importing to another program if you start with the current version of TMG. Hopefully someone with more knowledge on that will chime in.

Yes, you can buy a license from Harry. There is a cost, but you would have to get that from him. The time it takes is the time it takes you to exchange emails, and for you to download the installer.

There are several types of reports that will output the data she has entered. An Ancestor or Descendants report like the Journal will capture the data and put it in narrative form, but how well that will read depends on how she entered the data. These reports show relationships between parents and children. They can include images if they are saved as exhibits.

The more traditional genealogical reports, the Family Group Sheet and Pedigree charts will not provide narrative output, but do show relationships. The FGS can show all of the events that are recorded.

I think one of the above types will capture the most information.

The Individual Detail report shows the most detail of what is recorded about each person but does not include any parent/child relationship information.

There are several decent programs that can directly import TMG data. None can capture all of what TMG can record, but how much is lost depends on exactly how the TMG data has been entered and which features have been used. The loss may be significant, or may not be. Those with experience with these imports can provide more specific information, and hopefully will.

I understand now. I assumed that since the spouse box appeared in the box chart as an unknown person when their flag=N, that there was a reason why their name did appear.

There is. The spouses don't have the Flag set to Y, so they don't exist as far as the chart is concerned. Thus they are "unknown."

Is a 'focuse group' the best way to approach this issue?

A Focus Group will do nothing for you. You cannot use a Focus Group to control who is in a chart. A Focus Group can only be used to control the starting persons of a chart. If you use a focus group you will get a set of charts, one starting with each person in the FG.

Which leads to a larger question: I've operated under the philosophy that a spouse is not a descendant and therefore had the flags set accordingly. Is this an appropriate position to have?

There is no "appropriate position." The Flag is not a standard Flag. You invented it, so it means whatever you want it to. Why did you invent it and what do you hope too use it for?

What others options are available to having the spouse identified on the descendant chart without having their flag set so?

Turning of the Flag Restriction. Why did you turn it on in the first place? A Descendants Box Chart will include only descendants and their spouses by definition so I don't see how it could be helpful.

Bob,

If I'm understanding, you have created a Flag the family line that is set to Y for descendants of that line, but not for their spouses. Then you are specifying that this Flag must be set to Y in order to include them in the chart. Is that the case?

If so, you can't have it both ways. If you specify that only people with the Flag set to Y, you will only get people with the Flag set to Y. As long as you don't set the Flag to Y for the spouses they will not be included. You will have to either remove the Flag restriction on the chart or set the Flag to Y for the spouses.

The purpose of that Flag option is to limit those who appear in the chart to those with the specified setting. There is no provision for exceptions to that setting if you use it.

Assuming there is no way to recover it from your prior installation, the only way I know is to email support at WG and ask for it. Last I heard there was someone there who eventually will find your email and reply.

Failing that you could update to TMG 9 while serial numbers are still available. The link to the only dealer with a stock of them is in the same article.

You're welcome, Sue,

Would you be willing to share what the issue turned out to be? It's helpful for us to learn what part of our advise was helpful.

You need to find or get a copy of the TMG8 installer and use it to install the program.

Directions for getting the installer are included in my article.

Sue,

The reasons a serial number is not accepted are:

1. Using a different email address than used when the number was obtained.

2. Entering your name differently than used when the number was obtained.

3. Using a serial number for a different version of TMG.

4. Typing it in and making mistakes - it's best to copy and paste.

If these don't help you have two choices. You can email support at WG and at last report someone eventually will respond with the information. Or, you can buy a new serial number from Harry.

Sue,

You mean you tried the "Trouble Report" method and it didn't work? Or is it something else you tried that didn't work?

Do you get the "expired trial version" notice when you open TMG? If you open Help > About do you see a message about that? Do you see your name and serial number on that screen?

Is there a command on the Help menu to enter a serial number?

The problem is likely to be trying to backup to a location that does not exist. The error messages delivered during the backup process are often very misleading.

The backup location is specified for each separate project you have. When you move a project to a new computer that location is carried with the project, but likely does not exist on the new computer. The permanent solution is to set the backup for each project to a valid location on the new computer. The process to do that is described in my article on Moving Data to New Computer or Version which includes screenshots showing how to do it.

Do not just examine the paths visually - the paths on the new computer may be only subtlety different. Use the method described in my article.

Kathleen,

If you can see the serial number from the splash page, do this to get it in a copyable form:

Open TMG and use the Help > Technical Support command. On the screen that opens, click the Trouble Report button at the bottom left. Let that report open, and you should see your name, email address, and serial number near the top of the page.

Using that information exactly, even if some of it has since changed, enter them as described in my article on Moving Data to New Computer or Version.

Once you do that, make sure you save that information in a safe place where is cannot be lost by a computer failure. You also need to save a copy of the installer in case you need to re-install in the future. See my article on The Future for TMG Users for how to do that.

Susan,

You cannot "transfer" the TMG program - you need to install it on the new machine. My article on Moving Data to New Computer or Version describes how and where to find a copy of the installller. If you have a CD it do not use it unless you are very sure you never applied any of the free upgrades.

After the program is installed you can transfer your data, as described in the same article.

Joe,

I think you have it right with one minor exception in your point #1. With the FGS you can indeed opt to have Memos not called in the Sentence, omitted, embedded, or placed in footnotes or endnotes using the controls on the Memos tab of Options.

But you can also have Memos that are called in Sentences embedded with the check box for "Embed Sentence [M]emo" on the Miscellaneous tab. I've never understood why those two options are not on the same tab.

Thanks to both of you for your advice and clarifications.

You're welcome, Joe.

Terry, I use your census tag formats and thanks for that work. You use variables in the memo information. When you produce a FGS report do you simply mark those tags as "not use" in the output options?

I've never produced a FGS. I really like narratives, and FGSs don't do that.

Another example is the employment tag above. How can I use such a tag to produce just the memo for FGS and just the sentence for the Journal?

You can't. You need to decide which type of output you prefer and build your Tags accordingly. If you want to include these tags in the FGS you need to keep the Memos clear of variables. In my view it's not worth the trouble, but you may prefer a different path.

Joe,

Family Group Sheets and Individual Detail reports do not use Sentences. They are by nature not designed to be narrative reports, which is what Sentences provide. So since there is no Sentence processing, Sentence Variables in Memos are not processed either.

In your second question are you talking about output in narrative reports or the non-narrative ones?

Jim,

If you have entered a custom Tag for multiple births you could use that to set the Multiple Birth Flag. But if not, I don't see any way TMG could identify multiple births in order to set the Flag automatically. I don't see a way that the TMG Utility could do this either.

If all the children involved has full day-month-year birth dates it might help to make a list of dates. Use the List of Events report, then send it to Excel. There, sort them by date order and write a formula to identify the same date on two or more subsequent lines. This would at least identify potential multi-births and save you looking at each set of parents manually.

Links to the installers for TMG 9.05 are listed in the topic "TMG9 - Final installers (v9.05)" in this forum. Yes, the links there did not work for a time, but they are correct now.

Every link to the 9.05 upgrade I tried did not work This was back in June or July. I did not lose any data by doing the GEDCOM swap.

Look at your sources - the Source Types you assigned when you created them have been lost. The data in the various Source Elements is now scrambled. So your source notes in reports will be a mess.

Did you every use Witnesses? If so, they are lost.

Did you every put two Principals in a Tag that were not husband and wife? If so, those Tags are lost.

Did you ever enter a Date in a Note Tag? If so, those dates are lost. Read Michael's article for a more complete list. While you may not have used any of the features whose data loss he describes, I think you will find you did use a number of them.

Problem solved. It was a Parallels problem, which their tech support fixed for me. I now have access to my XP vm and my TMG. Lesson learned, though....do your backups regularly and store dupes of them someplace like a flash drive just to be sure.

Nicholas,

That's an essential practice, but be sure to store some of the backups out of your house. Either at another address that doesn't share the same risks (that is not at your next door neighbor's), or by using a cloud backup service.

Not sure on that one Nicholas, Give it a try and see what happens. In my case I was trying to run a 9.05 file on a 9.01 program. Unless you can get the Upgrade file for 9.05 the upgrade can't be done. That is why I converted my 9.05 files to a GEDCOM then put them into another program, made another GEDCOM and then put them into TMG 9.01. The program works fine and I have not had any further problems.

By doing that you lost a lot of data. Why didn't you just install 9.05? The installers are available in a number of places, including at Wholly Genes at the link provided in a pinned topic at the top of this section.

Your project was last opened in 9.03, and you have 9.05 now installed? Right?

Just Open the project in 9.05, or if you have a backup rather than an active project on the 9.05 machine, Restore it. TMG will take care of any upgrades of the Project files that may be needed (I can't recall whether any were needed for this upgrade).

Ed,

The Sentence you quoted is a perfect example of the misuse of Role variables and how that can cause needless problems. The Sentence is:

[RP:Witness] witnessed [R:Deceased]'s death . .

By using the variable [R:Deceased] the Principal must assigned that Role. This serves no purpose, and in fact requires the addition of the " 's " since there is no possessive form of that variable.

Instead the Sentence should be:

[RP:Witness] witnessed [P1S] death . .

By using the Principal variable the same result is obtained regardless of the Role assigned the Principal, and since there is a possessive form the " 's " can be avoided.

I recommend that instead of having to remember to assign the Role to the Principal which you don't otherwise need, you change the Witness Sentence as shown above.

It sounds like you do not have the Role of the Principal set to "Deceased." Is that the case?

You're welcome, Richard.

Here's what happened:

The Tag Type Labels, like many other features in TMG, are "translated" into the language of the user's choice. That is, there is a label for each language, and which label is displayed is controlled by the Language setting. This feature is primarily designed for users of languages other than English.

You initially installed the English (UK) version of TMG. When you do that, you get a few different Tag Types and Sentences, and the Language is set to English (UK). The Tag Type labels for the standard Tag Types are the same in both English (US) and English (UK).

Since you were using the UK version, there was no census tag type for US censuses, so you created one. You did that by copying a UK census Tag Type, and changing the label and probably the Sentence. Since your program was set to English (UK) when you changed the label it was only changed in that language. The label in English (US) remained the same, except that TMG added a "1" to the end to differentiate it from the existing Tag Type that you had copied.

This all works fine until you installed on a new computer. That installation had the language set to English (US), I suspect because you installed the US version. When you opened an existing Project in that installation it displayed the Tag Type labels for English (US) - which in most cases were the same as the English (UK) ones, but not for your custom US census Tag Type.

Now that you have set the Language to English (UK) on the new computer there shouldn't be any issue for you, with one exception. If you were to create a new Project on that computer that Project will contain the US Tag Types and not the UK ones.

Richard,

Compare the setting under File > Language on the two computers. I think you will find them different. If so, change Computer B to match Computer A.