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Good evening all, I have a few filing cabinets where I keep a physical file for some of the people in my TMG database. These files contains paper copies of important things like deeds, birth certificates, letters, id cards and even photographs. Over time the number of people in this filing cabinet has become rather large and I am trying to find a way to reference these files in the TMG database. I first considered using a flag called IsInFilingCabinet with values Y and N, indicating whether or not a person had information in my filing cabinets. I would then file the file in the cabinet using a persons Reference ID (since the names may change over time). However, this seems to have it's limitations: I can for example not keep track what information is contained in these filing cabinets without physically going to the filing cabinet and pulling the persons file. So my question is: does anyone else out there use physical filing cabinets for storage of paper documents and if so how do you index this information from TMG? Is a flag like I talked about above the easiest way and maybe with a tag describing what paper documents is in the cabinet for that person? Any help appreciated; Thanks, Ken V. Nordberg

Good morning, I asked this exact same question a while back, but those messages were apparently deleted together with the entire forum a while back. For people with multiple spouses, the spouse that was last input is the one that shows up on the "Siblings" and "Children" lists since these lists can only show one spouse at a time. How can I set the order of spouses so that the one I designate shows up as the default spouse on these lists. I know it's a simple answer, but I just can't seem to remember how to do it... Thanks, Ken V. Nordberg

Thanks for your reply. I was wondering though, is there a way to fix which spouse displays? There are several places in my family tree where a direct ascendant was married twice or even three times, and I would like the spouse of which I am descendant to display regardless. Is there a way to do that? The "last viewed spouse" option works just fine, but requires me to remember to review the "right" spouse if I view any of the other spouses. Thanks, Ken.

I set the Exhibit Folder preference under Current Project Options->Advanced and when I choose exhibits it always opens up to this folder by default. This folder can be set to any folder on any of your harddrives. It works fine for me. I have subfolders organized for certain individuals with many exhibits under this "master" folder and have no problem navigating the one level extra that represents. Hope that helps. Ken V. Nordberg

I completely agree with you and I scan most of my sources as well, but I still keep the original of most the things I scan. I hardly even open my filing cabinets except for when I add something to them or when I, for whatever reason, need to see the original document. My real issue here is not wether or not using filing cabinets is a good idea, my issue is how to handle the situation of having lots of original documents on file and being able to index all these resources directly from TMG. The problem really boils down to an organizational issue; how to index and keep track of what documents and for what people I have on file in my filing cabinets. What I was looking for is to draw from the experience of other TMG users that may have been in a similar situation and solved the problem? Don't get me wrong, scanning documents is by far the best solution because digital documents don't deteriorate over time, can be e-mailed, copied and otherwise manipulated without damaging the original, but I still think than in some cases the original is nice to have. I have a rather large collection of original deeds, letters, postcards, signed photographs and the like and to me looking at the scanned version doesn't give the "warm and fuzzy" feeling (for the lack of a better term!) that the original maintains I guess you can call it sentimental value! Anyway, comments greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help, Ken.

I am actually missing the possibility of using the ca. in the examples mentioned above. For example: ca. 1650-ca. 1680 Ken.

I use phpGedView and I like it alot. It may not provide all the functionality that you seek but that may be a good thing. I don't know what information you have recorded in your family tree, but in my case publishing ALL information may cause both legal and moral issues as I have everything from deeds, social security numbers, criminal records, address information, copies of ID's, just to mention a few and publishing these on the web may in many cases be illegal. Then I have a lot of private notes. For example in one case I had papers proving a child was adopted, this child is now 19 and did not himself KNOW he was adopted. Had I published this information online, I'd be in trouble! In any event I think Martin makes a valid point in that publishing some information online, while making the statement that more information is available to select family members upon request, makes sense. Again, I don't know what information you have in your family tree, so privacy may not be a problem at all. I am just the cautious kind! Ken.

This is an annoying problem that I had to deal with as well. I find it rather strange that the absolute path is the one stored in the database, especially since there is a configuration option called "Exhibit Folder" under the Advanced Section of the Current Project Options. Now, my logic tells me this is a pointer to the program what the general absolute path to the exhibits are. So, say I have a picture located in C:\TMG\Exhibits\Aragon\Portrait.jpg and I have the Exhibit Folder set to C:\TMG\Exhibits. In my head what is stored in the database should then be "\Aragon\Portrait.jpg". That way when a picture is to be addressed in the program for whatever reason the Exhibit Folder and the path stored in the database are concatenated to form the absolute path. That way you can move the exhibits around on your harddrive or other harddrives and never worry about broken links. But that's not the case, and it's a great headache. I have learned this after having to move my exhibits twice. What I have now done is allocated space in a special folder on my C: drive and when I move the family tree to other computers I always keep it on the C: drive in the same folder tree and I have no problems. Just like the other poster dais though; there are third party programs that will help you change the paths to your exhibits. Ken.

I may have been a bit fast on the trigger there. After going into the program, I see that your comment does indeed make sense as explained.

Maybe I am understanding this a little wrong, but for me the current way seems to be logical. For example, I have a lot of ancestors from Norway, but I also have a lot of ancestors from the US. The setup is a little different for places there using Address, Township, Municipality, County and Country instead of the standard American format which is Address, City, County, State and Country. A style allows me to specify the field names for my Norwegian place names on a per place basis. Having the style on a per tag basis seems wrong and more tedious to me because the format of a place name tends to be uniform in a particular region. I can't see how it can be useful to have one tag with the placename formatted one way and another tag with the place name formatted another way. Again, hope I didn't misunderstand you. Ken.

I have been making charts in TMG for some time now, but there is one thing I just can't figure out to do. Married couples appear in different boxes and if they have children together it may sometimes look at the first glance like the spouse is a child of the primary person. Several of my family members have commented on this. Several years back I used Sierra Generations (may it rest in peace), and there married couples appeared in the same box in the following way: (of course you could customize the look) Name PrimaryPerson Born 00/00/00 Died 00/00/00 Married 00/00/00 to Name SpousePerson Born 00/00/00 Died 00/00/00 All that information was in one box and the children would appear beneath it (in a top to bottom chart). It was really easy to read and follow. Is it possible to do something similar through TMG's charting module? If the setup is hard to understand I'll reinstall Sierra Generations and take a screenshot. Thanks for your help, Ken.

Thanks for your reply Mike. Yes, I should have mentioned it, but it is of course for the descendant chart only. I have attached another screenshot to show how multiple spouses are handled. I was writing this post because I hoped TMG already had this functionality. I would love to see the possibility of making charts like this. Not only does it make the descendant charts smaller but also easier to read. I don't know what the "standard" format in genealogy charting is, but I print a lot of descendant charts to family members that only really care about wether or not the chart is easy to read. In any event, just a dream for a future version. With out without this charting capability; TMG is still the best program out there, no doubt. Ken.

Colors definitely helps, but I have a lot of family members that report they have trouble reading my charts (especially since I don't always have the resources to print charts in color for family gatherings and the like). I have included a screenshot from Generations (I reinstalled it). I guess if it comes down to it, I can always export a GEDCOM file and import into generations just for the descendant chart, but Visual Chartform is endlessly more powerful than generations, it's just missing this one feature that in my opinion makes the charts a lot easier to read for the unitiated. The attached image shows a top to bottom chart in two generations. See how two names appear in each box. If there are multiple spouses a new box is added with that couple. The children appear boxes below with one line attaching so there is no confusion. When I drew my family trees on paper way back this is how I did it. Each person (although in the same box) is individually customizable in the chart so if you want the chart the WhollyGenes way that is apparently possible too. Thanks again for all your help, Ken.

Thanks for your reply Robin. That is bad news, I hoped maybe it would be possible and that I just missed the config option. The UK chart at least makes it clear at first glance who is the spouse and who is the children, so for me that's the better choice between the two formats I guess. I guess I'll just have to try and put in on the forum wishlist and hope that it may be included in some future version. Thanks again, Ken.

Have to admit I hadn't thought of that. Sounds like an excellent idea especially for large and complicated lines. In any event, several people here have convinced me that flags or focus groups is the superior way of organizing large family trees as opposed to splitting them into smaller data files. Ken.

I asked a similar question some time back and I had people talk me out of it. That is something I have never regretted. I took me quite some time to create the necessary focus groups to keep groups of people organized in case I need to export these groups of people. After these focus groups were established I have been extremely careful to keep these focus groups updated. Everytime I add a new person into the database I am careful to add the same person to the right focus group(s). It works great and I use it for a variety of different tasks: 1. Several websites for certain family names 2. Reports of certain lines that I send to family members. My conclusion: I have found it vastly easier to manage the focus groups that the separate databases. No duplicate people, no duplicate sources and no performance problems. But, again, that's just my opinion. It's worked great for me though. Focus groups is a powerful feature. Ken.

Good evening, I got an error today that I have never seen before, and just wanted to run it by everyone to make sure it's not anything bad (become rather suspicious as of late). I go into the Research Log (F12) and press edit to edit one of the research tasks (to update the progress fields). When I press OK to save I get the following message: Error with lbl_subj - ToolTipText: Expression evaluated to an illegal value. 10 FRMRESLOGTMG2.MREFRESHRECORD The record saves fine as far as I can see. The error indicated a ToolTip issue? No reason to worry, right? I have attached a screenshot of the error message for illustration. Thanks.

That may indeed be it! A few of my research tasks are linked to sources where the Title of the Source is indeed a very long string. Vera is checking the files out for me right now and if she finds nothing out of the ordinary, maybe waiting for the next release may fix the problem like you are suggesting then? It's not a very big problem anyways, I just naturally get a little apprehensive when I see error messages on my screen that ordinarily should not be there! Thanks, Ken.

Hi again Vera, The strange thing is that I hadn't even accessed these items before yesterday since I first created them back in 2004. I have in the time between 2004 and now run the maintenance functions many times. I also have not renumbered anything. I will e-mail you the files you requested. Thanks again Vera for taking the time to help me with this. Hopefully it's nothing bad anyway! Ken.

Hi Vera, Yes, the Error.txt contains the same error messages. It happens every time I try to access my research log, but only on certain items. These items seem to be rather old items, items I haven't really changed since October, November or December 2004. Here's what I did step by step: Back in 2004 I got my hands on a large number of original documents that I have spent a lot of time scanning. I finally completed and now went back to enter this information into the actual family tree. Here's what I did step by step: in 2004: Went to Tools->Researcg Log Pressed Add to add new Reserch Task Added Source number to Source button Addded Task Name and Designed Date and signed it with my name behind the date. Keyword and Expenses left blank, Comment field contains detailed description of task yesterday: I went back into the same source by by highlighting the source in the Research Task list and pressing the Edit button. Then I inputed yesterdays Date into the Planned and Begun Fields and signed with my name in the fields behind. When I then went to press OK, I got the error I was talking about. Hope this helps? Thanks again Vera, Ken.

Perfect. Thanks alot, Virginia. Ken.

Good morning, I run several websites using phpGedView using data from a TMG database and it's working great. I do have one wish though: When exporting data to a GEDCOM it would be really great if we were able to choose to export only primary exhibits. For example I have consistenly set the person's portrait as the primary exhibit, but I have some 2500 exhibits in my database and all of these get exported to the GEDCOM so it involves a lot of cleaning up for me before I can publish it to the website. Is it possible to post a feature request somewhere so that it may be considered by the developers? Thanks, Elev.

Thanks for looking into this for me, Jim. A feature like being able to export only primary exhibits to GEDCOM would be tremendeously valuable and time-saving for me. One step closer to genealogy program nirvana Ken.

Virginia, I had a look at your layout and it looks pretty similar to mine, but I saw one thing that I REALLY liked. On top right next to the box with the subject name and name of parents there is a little box that contains information such as Soundex, Reference Number, Age, Number of children etc. When looking at this I realize that your Age column is on top. I really like this because it gives you the opportunity to quickly see what a person's age is right now. What confuses me though, is that I can't find information anywhere on how to specify the order of the information in this box. Like how do you get the age column to appear on top? On my installation reference is on top, followed by soundex I think, and the age and number of children doesn't appear until further down. How did you do it? Thanks, Ken. QUOTE (Virginia Blakelock @ 1 Feb 2006, 09:52 AM) I also have a large high-res monitor. It's wonderful to have the tmg windows that I use most all open at the same time - and still have room on my screen for my Clipmate software. You can see my layout at: http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index.php?showtopic=14442&view=findpost&p=58147 Edited to update layout to TMG v8

I was one of those who had massive problems with disappearing citations, but I am happy to report that since upgrading to 6.07 there have been no further problems for me. I am still backing up on a daily basis though and encourage everyone to do the same. Elev.