Terry Reigel

Bob,

I'm not a fan of adding any exhibit until you know why you are doing it. Making something an exhibit just to keep track of it is doing so the hard way in my view. If you are adding it with the intention that it be output somehow, you need to think about how you expect to output so you can format and attach the exhibit to produce the best results. As you suggest, lots of images in printed output is unlikely to produce a desirable result.

Images can work well in a website. If you want them embedded in the text you would want to consider the number and size of the images. But they can also appear as links, which means the number of them is unimportant and you can make them as large as you like. However using files that are larger than they can be displayed on screen comfortable is not the best idea.

My article on the Basics of Using Exhibits may be helpful.

A new feature in Second Site - adding links to a mapping service is very handy for places that still exist, especially if Google Streetview has visited that site. That provides a link to the map location and the reader then then see a photo of the site in Streetview.

Bob,

TMG 9.05

Can I attach the pics to one of the existing residence tags so that when that address is referenced for each individual living there, that pic will be attached?

Yes, you can attach the image as an exhibit to the Tag for that address, and it can then be displayed for everyone attached to that Tag either as a Principal or as a Witness.

Or must I attach the pics to each resident tag for that address one at a time?

How is that different than the above?

What is the down side of attaching the pic to a resident tag instead of the individuals?

It can't appear in the picture window on the TMG main screen. I can't think of why you would want it to.

Is there a better way?

Probably not. Attaching the images to Residence Tags will place them in the output according to the Sort Date of that Tag, and automatically connects them to each person entered in the Tag. That's clearly better to me than attaching them to a person, which you would have to do for each person, and they would all appear together in the output.

You could attach them to custom "Photo" Tags which would allow you to locate them in the output independently of the Residence Tag. Have you considered how you want to output these images? I think there is great risk that you will end up with lots of images with seemingly random text interspersed. What form of output do you intend to use?

I may have other questions once I open TMG up to see what tags are available for Last Wills and Testaments, but any advice in advance would be appreciated.

Ask away. How you might enter will and probate information depends on how many you have and how much information you have on each. I've found considerable interesting information for some individuals, and now have separate Tag Types for Will Wrote, Codicil, Proved, Inventory, and Settlement. I've forgotten how many of these are standard, but most aren't. But you don't need all of them. You can use Note or Anecdote Tags instead.

Try Preferences > Program Options > Data Entry and under Data Entry Mode select Advanced.

Links to the TMG 9 installers are shown in my article on the Future for TMG Users.

If your old computer is still operable, you can recover the serial number from it. If not, you need to find the email from Wholly Genes that contains it. If that fails, at last report emails to support@whollygenes.com requesting old serial numbers were still being responded to, but you must be patient waiting for a reply.

If nothing else, you can buy a new serial number from Harry Goegebeur whose address appears as a link in my article.

Once you get back up running make sure have copies of the installer and serial numbers in a safe place as recommended in my article.

Cannot download the v8.08 update (bad URL).

You can download TMG 8 from several sources. But I'd recommend you move to TMG 9, as Michael suggests.

An update. I have continued to experiment with the journal report; with some success, though I am still struggling a little with the sometimes odd sentences that come out of the database.

If you are using the standard Sentences you should expect the narratives to be stilted, or worse. If you care about the quality of the narratives you really need to customize the Sentences for each Tag Type so they work well with the way you use them.

If you really care about the quality of the narratives you need to create different Roles to suit different situations, and/or customize the Sentences is some individual Tags.

I tried some small files (100 people or so, of three generations) using the "Master Document File(s)" function. The files came out ok, but I had to go through a process of combined the three resulting files. Kind of a pain, but really just a matter of editing. I will continue working with this, using larger groups of people, and will report out my results, if there continues to be an interest.

I would like to know how you find that works. I hope to publish some books that would be pretty long and may need to use that technique.

I also tried the "Combined Consecutive Footnotes/Endnotes." While there were much fewer endnotes, the amount of text didn't really vary all that much, and I found it hard to sort out which sources were listed in each endnote. With three or more combined endnotes, it was difficult to sort out where one citation ended and the next one started.

Combined notes are helpful in theory but really don't work well if you have long notes, especially the first footnote when you include notes in the Comments field of the Source Definition to explain the note.

Do consider how many of the Citations you want to appear in the output. You can exclude those that are repetitive or don't really add anything. My "rule" is to show no more than three, sometimes fewer, unless the sources are conflicting and I think more are needed to explain.

As set up, the database generates a single sentence for each name (I track all of the name variations I find, as an aide to searching for people in the pick list). I know that these sentences can be combined, but I would have to find and combine all the names for each person. I am wondering if there is a way to rewrite the basic sentence structure in the tag to combine (concatenate?) with other name tags that may or may not be there.

First, I'd suggest you reconsider whether you want all those variations to appear in reports. I include in reports only 1) the one name I think the person actually used, 2) nicknames that are not obvious diminutives of that name including cases where the person went by a middle name almost exclusively, 3) cases where a person substantially changed his or her name, and 4) "farm names." While recording variations may be useful in research, my view is readers of a report don't want to wade through them.

If you want you can concatenate the output of different Tags by putting the [+] code in front of the Sentence of all Tags after the first (I assume that works for Sentences of Name Tags - I see it is not on the right-click menu for them). However I think you will find that you need to not use that code on the first name to be displayed (remember that the primary Name Tag is not actually output but it combined with the first other Tag.) This means I think that you would have to assign one Name Tag Type to the first name, and another to all following Name Tags. Roles would be useful for this but they are not supported for Name Tags.

For residence tags, I include all members of the household as a means of tracking the ebb and flow of a families residences over time (census records would be the best example of this); with parents as the primaries and others (children, relatives, etc.) as witnesses. The resulting residence tag makes for an easy way of tracking families, but for some clumsy sentence structure. Any thoughts?

Are you talking about the output for the parents or the children? What Sentences are you using? You might look at my Census Tag for one idea about how to output the names of children in the household with the parents, and also output for the children. It is described in an article on my website.

The list has been sending messages again since Tuesday, Oct 25

You're welcome, Joe,

The TMG Utility can make that process much easier, as I tried to describe in my article cited above.

Bob,

Yes. You made the change to the Tag Type definition. So it applies to every Tag that uses that Tag Type.

Joe,

I did that with most of my sources that used split CDs some years ago. My article on that process at http://tmg.reigelridge.com/Sources-convert.htm may offer useful tips.

I didn't have any trouble finding the sources involved because they all used Source Types that were designed to use split CDs. I think I use a list of sources with a filter for those Source Types to locate them, but it was pretty easy to spot them in the Master Source List anyway. I suppose you could filter the List of Citations for the bars but I'm not sure how you specify that. Hopefully someone else will offer a suggestion on that.

I must be doing something wrong because the residence tag only appears for the principal. Here is what happens:

 

I add a residence tag for person 1. I add his children as witnesses to the tag, family member 1 is ID'd as a daughter of principal, family member 2 as a son, etc.

 

When I go to family member 1 and 2, person view, they are identified as witnesses to principal residing there. No residence tag appears for them.

That is the Residence Tag for them. You can change the labeling in their Person View by editing the Residence Tag, Other tab. At the top left, under Display Witnessed Tags, change As "Witness" to Using the Label Above. I think that will do what you want.

Bob,

I don't understand the issue with the Person View - the tag does appear for each person. For the FGS Jim is correct - you the Sentence doesn't help.

Why don't you change the Sentence for the Witnesses so it says what you mean?

It happens from time to time with quite a few users. I've never figured out how it gets accidentally changed either.

Thanks for the information. I have been experimenting some with the journal report. One, to decide which format to use (FEHGR, NGSQ, TAG or custom), and there doesn't seem to be any significant difference in the formats.

You're welcome. The three journal formats are intended to replicate the standards of the respective journals. They do that by manipulating the various options on the Miscellaneous tab. Custom lets you set those options yourself. When you choose Custom it starts with the settings of the last journal option you has selected.

Two, to understand the file size problem. I am anticipating some really large files (I have been at this since 1987), and I am wondering.

 

In the report options tab, there is something called "Master Document File(s)." One option is "One Per Generation." If I understand this, it would break up the single journal report files, into multiple files; one for each generation. It seems like this would greatly ease the file size problem, if I truly understand it.. Once the files are generated and edited, it should be too difficult to combine them into a single document.

That's what is supposed to do. I've never tried it, but I recall comments that there were issues with it, but don't know whether the issues were with TMG or with Word. I recall hearing separately that the master document feature in Word had issues, but that's some time ago so don't know whether it applies to current versions. Please let us know if you try it what your results are.

One other thing I noticed while fiddling around, was something called "Combined Consecutive Footnotes/Endnotes." I experiment with this some, and while it doesn't much reduce the test associated with endnotes, it does greatly reduce the number of endnotes. I wonder if this would also help the file size problem.

That will reduce the number of notes, and I think the number, rather than the volume, of notes is the issue with Word but since M/S won't explain what the issue actually is it's hard to know.

This a simple issue, and re-installing is not going to help - it seldom does.

The key is that you have somehow filtered the events so witnessed events are not shown. Right-click on any tag in the main tag box. About half way down the right-click menu you will see "Filtered for." Click on that, then click on which ever filter has a check mark in front of it to remove that mark.

I'd guess the issue is that the repository is not marked as Primary. On the Attachments tab, see if there is a " * " in front of the Repository number. If not, highlight the Repository and click the [ * ] button.

If you create large files for Word with many footnotes or endnotes you will not be able to open them - Word will give a meaningless error message that totally disguises the fact that the issue is number of notes. Try Jim's suggestions to use other word processors and/or output in RTF format.

Ruth,

There are a couple of ways. Adding an exclusion mark as John suggested in the empty name field should do it. Or you can change the name variable in the Sentence to one that doesn't call for the missing name element.

Abrosz,

On the Help menu, choose Technical Support.

On the screen that opens, click the Trouble Report button at the lower left.

When prompted, let it open in your word processor.

Near the top will be the name, email address, and serial number. Copy and paste each of them in when you enter the serial number as Jim has directed above.

I assume that by "download software" you mean download the TMG installer. The answer to "how long" is nobody can tell you that. The answer to can you get disks is no.

If you intend to keep using TMG you should have already downloaded the appropriate installer as Jim directs above, and saved a copy of it and your serial number in a safe place. See my article for more information.

Roz,

A marriage bond is like a bann in the sense that it shows that a marriage was intended. Neither proves the marriage actually happened. If you have other evidence that they did in fact marry, I would enter a marriage with a "circa" date, because you don't know how long after the bond was made they were married, and cite the bond as a source.

Christopher,

You sequence tags by adding a Sort Date to Tags that don't have a date, or that you want to appear out of date order. You must be in Advanced Data Entry mode to see Sort Dates. You change to that in Preferences > Program Options > Data Entry.

Dan,

You need to enter the name and email address as they appear in the email you received that transmitted your serial number to you. That should be the same email address you entered when you paid for the serial number.

See my article Moving Data to New Computer or Version for some tips on the backup process and fixing issues with paths that generally occur when you move to a new computer.