whittoncarolyn

In report filters there used to be a "tag does not exist" option. It's not there in TMG8! What happened to this option & why was it removed? It was a useful option because one could run a report listing the people, for example who were missing a birth tag, and then correct that omission with an estimated DOB. This filter option was also useful for getting a more complete list on other filters. For example, if one wanted to learn which people in a project were living at the time of the 1940 census, a filter such as: "birth date comes before 1940 and death date comes after 1940" will yield ONLY those people in the project who already have both a birth tag and a death tag with a date therein. But changing that filter to: "birth date comes before 1940 and (death date comes after 1940 or death tag does not exist)" would also yield all the people in the project who were born before 1940, but are still living! There could be many of these additional people.

Thanks everyone for reminding me this option, which did exist in version 4 [i never owned TMG 2], has been replaced by "# of tags = 0", which does have the same effect. Jan, I'm not coming that far east anytime soon, so hi! to everyone there. I will be in Cincinnati in May.

Jim, Here's what finally worked on the file with the 13,000+ exhibits. I reduced the list of folders to search in validate file integrity to just 10. That finally ran all the way through without getting hung up and stopping responding; it took 11 minutes. It found 200 of the 12,000+ missing files. Before that I had tried to do all the folders for a single family (about 40) and it got hung up and stopped responding after finding 69 files. So to get all my external exhibits back again, I'll have to do this about 50 times at 10 folders per try. I will try increasing the number from 10 up to 20 and see if it will still run all the way through. And I hope that after there are fewer exhibits missing, it will go a little faster. Thanks for trying to help. Carol whitton, CG Vice-President for Programs, St. Louis Genealogical Society

Creating a new Evidence Explained style source requires new source elements and new source groups. In order to avoid duplicating the source element groups used in the newly created sources, I've found it impossible to stick to the guideline that new source elements ought to be placed in "similar" groups and simply used whatever group is available and not yet used. Has anyone found a way around this? Is there any reason, like use in reports or indexing, that I shouldn't just use any available and unused source element group? Is this likely to be fixed in version 8 or are we still awaiting further upgrades? For example, a new church source requires three sets of locations: (1) the location of the event (the church), (2) the location of the creator of the microfilm used (FHL) [this location is not in the full footnote, but is in the bibliography], and (3) the location of the archive holding the original document, at which the microfilm was made. This meant creation of three sets of "detail, city, county, state, country" locations. [Wish: It still would be nice if rather than having to retype all these locations, we could grab some from the event itself.] For this church record source type, I created for the location of the event: Church in Author group Town in Location group State in Second location group for the archive holding the original document: Building in the Publisher group City in the Publisher location group State_2 in the Record number group for the creator of the microfilm: Repository used from Repository group Location_1 in the Repository info group In this case, extra dates are not required, but some other cases require up to three dates as well. Again odd groups need to be used to avoid duplicating groups in the new source.

I'd like to be able to transfer my carefully designed source reminders to another project. Is there a way to do this?

For some unknown reason when sending an individual narrative report to Word, with endnotes selected, the endnotes no longer print in the Word document. Previously this worked fine. A message window comes up between the "do I want to overwrite the previous version" window and the "do I want to open Word now" window. But, this new message window comes up UNDERNEATH all the other open windows, so I only see its corner flash by. I can't seem to stop the process long enough to put the other screens to the back and bring it to the front to see what it says! Any suggestions?

I fixed my problem. For anyone interested, the problem seems to be in the way text is viewed in Word; not a TMG problem. In Word, view the report as "print view," and see the endnotes at the bottom of the page automatically. But, viewing in "normal view" requires clicking on footnotes in the menu bar to see the endnotes at the bottom. Whether or not they're visible on the screen, however, the endnotes still are there and will print out at the end of the document. (Assuming your word is set for endnotes at the end of the document.) Evidently, closing the computer, reset Word back to normal view.

I tried to create a new custom icon for my custom toolbar. I used an icon downloaded from the Internet. I stored it in a folder I called "myicons." But, I discovered in the custom toolbar creation the new TMGv7 automatically defaults to icons located in the following folder: C:\documents and settings\all users\application data\The Master Genealogist v7\buttons\ . When I tried to attach to another folder, it seemed to accept it; but I didn't get the icon. When I looked back, TMG still defaulted to only the above folder, even though I had changed it. When I tried to move my "myicons" folder, or the icons in it, into the above referenced folder, I found I can't get to that location in Windows Explorer. Under "docs and settings\all users," I can only get the sub folders: Desktop, Favorites, Shared Docs, and Start Menu, NOT Application data. I asked a frequent user of Customs in our RUG group. She looked and says her customs icons are all still stored in the TMGv6 folder: Program Files/The Master Genealogist/buttons. They evidently did not transfer over into TMGv7's folders; but can still be used from TMGv7. So, the question is: what is going on in TMGv7 with custom icon buttons?? Where should they be stored?

I had already figured out how to turn on the "Application Data" folders which were hidden in Windows. But, then when I copied the custom icons into the buttons folder under Application Data, they show up in the list of buttons in the buttons folder in Windows Explorer, but still don't show up in TMG as choices in the custom buttons list.

The web address used on the Master Place list to find the location of foreign sites--http://gnswww.nima.mil/geonames/GNS/index.jsp--does not seem to work. I always get the typical cannot find page error when I use it from within TMG v7. Is it broken? The other URLs for accessing the same site outside of TMG still work fine. http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/index.html or http://164.214.2.59/gns/html/index.html. The only difference is on these links is you have to click GNSsearch twice (not once) to get through the above page to the actual GNS search page.

Thanks Jim; good to know this is a known problem. But, it's not an out of date URL, it's the URL for the first sub screen and users need to get to the second subscreen. You just can't use it to get there directly, you have to use one of the URLs for the screen above it and click twice to get to the GNS.

I need to change a citation entry. In CD I entered: FHL||no. 1201655||v. 5, Taufen, Tote, Heiraten, Konf. 1653-1690 Taufen 1685-1807 Tote 1685-1740 Konfirmationen 1685-1807 Heiraten 1683-1798||.... I should have entered: FHL||no. 1201655, item 5||v. 2, Taufen, Tote, Heiraten, Konf. 1653-1690 Taufen 1685-1807 Tote 1685-1740 Konfirmationen 1685-1807 Heiraten 1683-1798||..... Cardinal's Utility will change a citation entry. But I need retain the .... fourth part of each CD which will be different for each entry. Does anyone know if it is possible to change just the second and third part in a 4 part CD without changing the 4th part?

Does anyone know when Map My Family Tree will be adjusted to work with TMG v7?

The add person icon and add, add person from menu seem to hang up TMG7, resulting in almost all menu topics being grayed out. The only way to get out of this seems to be to end task TMG from the windows task manager and start again. This results in one of those please send this error to windows messages. So something is not right with windows and add person in TMG7.

In preparing a lecture for RUG, I tried changing the Windows Properties Display Appearance settings to one of higher contrast and larger font for greater onscreen visibility. The TMG windows also change, making it easier to read the title bars. But, the Tag Entry boxes in TMG also change background and font colors. The result is some of the labels on tabs, place entry, and names of the persons become unreadable because they change to too light a color for the new background colors. I tried using Advanced in the Windows Display Appearance, but couldn't locate the correct Windows item to change to get more readable font colors in TMG tag boxes with any high contrast setting or with many of the other non-standard appearance options in Windows. I returned to Windows classic standard settings, which TMG handles ok. I suggest TMG enable some alternate font/background settings to go with the various Windows Display Appearance setting choices. Particularly those Windows display options which take high contrast or larger fonts, as many TMG users might like to use the larger fonts. Or, give us some direction on what to change in Windows Display Appearance Advanced settings to get the tag entry screen labels readable with at least some of the optional Windows backgrounds.

A man marries a widow and legally adopts her children by her first marriage, changing their surnames to his surname. These children become his legal heirs, along with his own children by this wife. But the adopted children are not his blood children. How can one make these adopted children show up on a descendant box chart along with his own blood children??

Mark, You seem to be asking about my reference to creating a new place style. You certainly can create a customized place style and for a long time, I used a custom German place style for all my German ancestors. In my custom place style, fields were defined as 1=detail, 2=city, 3=county, 4=regirungsbezirk, 5=state, and 6=country. That is, I moved all the place fields up to add a field for regirungsbezirk in between County and State. I moved the fields forward, rather than back, because TMG help suggested the "State" and "Country" fields should not be changed since reports expect them where they are in fields 5 & 6. This worked very well for my purposes on the screen. To make this change, follow these instructions: Create a New Place Style: 1. ONLY POSSIBLE IN ADVANCED MODE (file, preferences, data entry). 2. Click Tools, Master Style List, Places, style type = places. 3. In filter box change “all data sets” to “all unlocked data sets” or a “specific dataset name”. 4. Click Add. 5. Type a new style name. 6. Right click on a field to add a new field type. 7. Example = right click “county” field. 8. Click “Modify labels of this type”. 9. Edit labels box appears. 10. Click add. 11. In box at bottom, type in a new field name, eg: regirungsbezirk. 12. Click add again and “regirungsbezirk” appears on list of labels above. 13. Click Ok. 14. On Edit Place Style Screen, click dropdown arrow next to County field, 15. Scroll down to “regirungsbezirk” and click. 16. In Output template box, replace <[County],> with <[Regirungsbezirk],> if this is not automatically done already. 17. Repeat this proceedure with the city, detail, and address fields, changing them to respectively: Kreis, town/village, detail, then Click Ok & Close. BUT, I stopped using this custom field structure because I found not only were the State and Country expected to be in fields 5 and 6, but many other programs also expect City and County to be in fields 3 & 4! For example, the search programs attached to TMG for mapping, would not accept my German place names--such as Issiagu, Kreis Hof, Oberfranken, Bayern, Germany--because the search programs look for the "city" in the TMG defined City field and this custom place style was placing the "city" in what TMG defined as the "detail" field and the "county" in the field TMG defined as "city." Now, instead, I type all my German places into the place fields as TMG defined them, using commas to separate the extra administrative places. In my example, now, 3 City = Issigau, 4 County = Hof, Oberfranken 5 State = Bayern, 6 Country=Germany. Now, the external search programs recognize this place name! Therefore, I think you are correct to believe if you rearrange the fields and create a custom place style that redefines the place fields, you will have some cleaning up to do when you import from or export to other programs. Other programs, like the search programs, probably will assume TMG output stays with the City, County, State, Country breakout for place fields 3,4,5,and 6.

I'm well aware that you can add fields to the places. I phrased that comment poorly. Even though you can add places to the place list, it requires you to rearrange the City, County, State, Country set up. And, unfortunately, that setup is used by other programs as it is, so that if you put the "region" in the State field and move State and Country down one field, you mess up other things in the program. And if you move all the fields up one instead of back one, ditto results. So, you don't want to do that, because you then can't use the TMG program to its fullest.

Several good "work around" methods have been proposed here in response to Mark's original question and this is not really a response to Mark's question, but an addition to the TMG wish list! It's great he's thinking ahead, because this is a problem in TMG all of us have! Although the normal genealogist methodology is to enter the place name as it was given at the time of the tag/event, the name will change over time, even now! We need, at least, some way to refer to the current administrative breakout for the place too. Two place names (and maybe more) should be linkable to each place, both for footnote purposes in reports and also for search purposes. TMG links to several place search sites and at least one companion program for place searches--Map My Family Tree, Multimap, MapQuest, USGS, etc. All of these look up the name of a place by its current name and current administrative breakdown; not that old one! So, to make use of these, we also need a way of linking the current administrative breakdown to the place! The simplest solution, entering the old and new name in a parenthesis relationship in TMG, causes these sites to be unalbe to locate the place at all! I'd like to suggest TMG fix this problem of linking multiple place names for one place. The solution would be to add a link from one MPL entry to another MPL entry with the current place name and to allow at least the first entry for the place in a report, to link with a footnote giving the current administrative name of the place. Then, if like Mark, we wanted to put an historical appendix in our book describing the place, we could reference it in that footnote too. And, while they're fixing place problems, TMG might also look at the idea of adding further administrative place fields; rather than limiting us to City, County, State, Country. For example, in the U.S., we need a place to put the "township" name other than "City, township" in the city field. For Germany (and other countries too) there needs to be a place to put the "region/regirungsbezirk" name other than "County, region" in the County field. It is not uncommon for other countries to have another administrative breakout, such as the German Region or the China's Prefecture, between County and State or another administrative breakout, such as a District, between City and County! This is especially true when looking at historical administrations. Please consider this not just a response to Mark's original question; but also an addition to the TMG wish list!