Michael Hannah

Kenny, Sorry to hear of your problem. Very strange. Could you be a little more specific on what you do and what you see? For example, when you click the "+Add Person" button, what happens? Does a window pop open? If so, what do you do then and what happens? Or, when you click the "Add" menu and the drop-down menu appears is the "Add Person" section shown on the menu? If so and you click on one of the "Add Person" choices, for example the last choice of "Unrelated", what happens then? Do you get a window asking the Sex of the new person? Reporting exactly what buttons or menu choices you click and exactly what happens or doesn't might help one of us users to guess what might be your problem.

Depending upon the item I have taken two different approaches which may give you ideas. For some, like a family bible that I use as a source, I simply enter it as a Source in TMG, and use the Comments field for comments about this item (of course modifying the Source output templates to print those Comments). Then I use an Anecdote tag where I cite that Source to that tag, to describe when it changed hands. For an item that will have many kinds of information that I want to record separately about it, but not always print out, I use the non-standard feature of creating a location "pseudo" person. For example, a location pseudo person could be a building or a place like a family house or farm that is used to link a series of owners and residents, and tags describing the overall character and changes of the site. For example, GivenName="Anderson" Surname="Family Farm". Then custom tags, such as Ownership, can have this "person" as either a Principal or a Witness while other "real" people are linked to the location pseudo person by also being Principal(s) and/or Witnesses to the same tag. By viewing the pseudo person's Details screen one could then see a chronology of events associated with this location. And viewing each of the owners' Details screen you would see their link with the site. Hope this gives you ideas,

Just a wild stab, but... Are you installing the program on the system hard drive? or possibly on an external drive?

I have heard that a number of people use RTF. I don't have OO, but regularly use FrameMaker, and it imports RTF very well so you might try that?

Happy to help. Keep the questions coming!

Sorry Jim (and Terry). My misattribution. I have edited/corrected the posting. Actually, so do I. I currently have a Repository for every Source. I also use the Source Comments field and include that field in my Bibliography templates to make comments about that particular source in that particular repository (e.g. pages 46-47 were blotched with spilt ink...)

Very true, Terry, but there is always the exeption I have a reference to a book that has handwritten notations in the margin by the author. Since that specific copy of the book is unique, even though the book exists in many libraries I needed to make a point of citing the Repository, since another reader would have to go to that specific repository to see that specific copy to view those margin notes that I cited. Of course, like you said, that would make this copy "quite rare". Strathglass, hope this gives yet one more example of repository versus source, [Edited to correct the quote attribution]

Hi Strathglass, I see you posted multiple questions, one per topic. Well, done. It makes it easier. While Terry and Jim are absolutely correct on the classic definitions of the terms "repository" and "source', I am one of those that likes to "think outside the box" and consider simply what these database entities are in TMG. Of course, these database entities were created to serve the classic definitions, but can be used in a customized manner in all sorts of non-classic ways. I choose to view these two entities as simply levels of a heirarchy that include Citations, Sources, and Repositories. In database terms these are all implemented in what is known as the "one-to-many" relationship. One Repository entry can be linked to many Sources, and one Source can be linked to many Citations. You are in complete control of what data fields from each you chose to place in the Full Footnote, Short Footnote, and Bibliography templates, with the exception that citation fields cannot be used in the Bibliography templates. So... what does this mean? Place in a TMG Repository entry things that you want to repeat commonly across multiple Sources and link all those Sources to that one Repository. And place in the TMG Source entry things that you want to repeat commonly across multiple Citations, and link all those Citations. While most people use these TMG entities in the "classic" way, and the default FF, SS, and B templates assume that usage model, if you understand the underlying concept of how these TMG entities are related in the database then their uses are only limited by your imagination. One of the best examples of a non-standard use of these entities is by Teresa Elliott. She has her templates customized to use a film roll as her TMG Repository entry, and can thus repeat the common roll information when she refers to multiple sources on that single film roll. You might check the archives for a more complete definition of her system. Hope this gives you ideas,

Hi Philipp, In my opinion TMG provides very easy ways to customize and tailor almost all of the reports to produce more of what a user may want. While I might agree with your comment that some of "the standard reports are not really beautifully designed", in most cases I can modify my tag sentences to change those standard reports to produce what I desire. Perhaps if you explained exactly what you consider a "beautifully designed" report, possibly with examples, some of us users might offer ideas and suggestions about how to get TMG to come close to such a design.

Glad we could give you ideas

Concerning the option to create a custom tag, possibly called Image, and attaching the photo as an exhibit to that tag. If you create it in the "Other" tag group, as Jim suggested, then such tags require assigning a Principal to it, such as the Mother as Mike suggested. However, if you create the tag in the "History" group then tags in that group do not have Principals, only Witnesses, so you don't have to (often arbitrarily) decide who is primary. As for the Caption, yes that is normal since you are attaching the photo to different people/tags and each Caption may wish to emphasize some different point for that attachment. First, there is seldom a "right" way, it really depends on how you want the information to output. If you do not want the transcription to output, you could attach the text as an exhibit to the Source itself. Or, you could create a separate custom tag, perhaps called Transcript, attach the transcription as an exhibit to that tag and link it to the people mentioned. Or, if the information is only about a single event concerning one person, you could simply attach it as an exhibit to the tag associated with that event. Or, there is the concept of creating "pseudo" people, such as Jim suggested with the photo. For some sources I create "pseudo" people for the source, and then assign tags to that "person", such as a Transcript tag. Or, there are a whole lot of other ways to do this, and the "right" way is the one that produces the output you desire. Others have pointed you to the TMG Utility. Again, there is no "right" source type to use since the specific TMG source type you do use is not visible to anyone but yourself. You can start with most any source type and then tailor it to your needs so that it will produce the citation output you desire. What source type you start with only matters in how much "tailoring" you need to do. Some are "pre-tailored" to work well for certain sources so it is simply less extra work to use them. For the "right" way to produce citation output, there are numerous standards, often depending upon where/how you intend to publish. For a commonly accepted standard for genealogy citations I would recommend "Evidence Explained" by Elizabeth Shown Mills, which is available from the TMG store (and currently 25% off). I usually check that reference work and choose the source type that most closely produces the output that seems recommended by that work. No problem, answering questions is the purpose of the Forum. But in future you might want to simply create four separate postings with separate titles, it helps others in the future when they have the same question and search for it. Hope this gives you ideas,

As Jim replied you need to read the topic in the Help file on "Data File Storage". I have not (yet) upgraded to Vista, but I understand that it imposes more Security strict rules that prevent "ordinary" users (as opposed to Administrator) from writing in some folders. This was probably your issue. Glad you got it resolved.

Yes, your project file is clearly on the C: drive, but where are you trying to write the backup file? Check File>Preference and under Current Project Options select Advanced. Look at the very first entry labeled "Backups:" and check to see if that is pointing to something other than your C: drive.

Terry is correct that the only way to get he/she later in the sentence is to hard code it in the sentence(s). This is one of the very valuable uses of the gender specific sentences. If you want a rule to remember for later try this. The focus person’s variable, e.g. [P] or [W] , will be changed to a pronoun only if two conditions are met: a) This is the second or subsequent sentence in the same TMG text "grouping" (usually a paragraph as TMG defines it, ignoring any [:CR:] you may have included) for that focus person, AND this is the first variable in the sentence. In other words as an example, [P] always gives the full name when any other variable precedes it. Hope this helps,

Alan, Are you getting this throughout your entire report for all sentences? Or just in one sentence type? If the latter and only happening for the sentences from one tag type, I have heard of this sometimes occuring if you have unbalanced conditional angles around TMG sentence variables. These are the less-than '' signs. Check the Sentence definition in the tag that is producing the problem sentence and see if this might be the issue.

It might help to understand the concepts behind TMG. There are People and there are Tags for events and relationships. There really are not "fixed" relationships. There are simply various kinds of Tags that describe different kinds of events and relationships. You choose a tag, like Marriage, to document an event, and then simply link various People to that event, like the two Principals to the marriage and possibly witnesses like the minister, Maid of Honor, and Best Man. Similarly you choose a Relationship Tag, like mother/child, and link the two people that have this relationship. If you want even more explanation of TMG concepts, I recommend Terry Reigel's web article on the Basic Concepts of TMG. Hope this helps you understand TMG better,

Hi Joan,Let me suggest an alternative to carrying around both a Palm and a laptop, and the schronizing issues these imply not only to each other but to a desktop computer back home. I have an OQO handheld computer. As their advertising says: "A full PC that fits in your pocket!" I also have a back injury issue, and don't even want to lug around a full laptop, but I want all of my full TMG datasets with me, and all the utilities, and full Windows, and all the other programs, and the ability to directly do data entry to my TMG data without having to synchronize. Further, I don't want to have to synchronize again later with a desktop computer when I get home. So I got this handheld PC which weighs only one (yes, I said one) pound, and with dimensions of 5.6"(W) x 3.3"(H) x 1.0"(D) easily fits in a purse, fanny pack, or jacket pocket. The 5" screen is small, but easily zooms, and with TMG's wonderful ability to customize layouts, I have defined layouts that work great with this small screen. Rather than everything on the screen at once I just switch layouts as needed. This handheld costs as much as a full laptop because it is one, but is a fraction of the size and weight but also a slight bit less powerful due to its size. Not great for intensive graphics or heavy interactive computer games (neither of which I do), but I think does everything that one would want for genealogy and general office work. I have the Tablet version so I have the best of all worlds for data input. At whatever repositories I'm doing research in I can write quick notes using the stylus on the tablet, I can do short data entry with the internal thumb keyboard, and I can do more complete data entry by sitting at a desk or table and pulling out my bluetooth full-size folding keyboard. And since it has built-in wireless I can use the wireless connection at the library to check out genealogy web sites on the spot. Then when I get home I just dock the OQO into its docking station with its connected dual 19" monitors, full keyboard, and trackball, and DVD writer and there is no synchronizing necessary to a desktop computer. It is my desktop computer as well. I am not affiliated with OQO, just a satisfied customer,

Great, John, Glad it got you what you wanted. As for flags, this was one of the (many) reasons that custom flags and Secondary Output were introduced.

John, First, Helmut is correct, my single filter finds dates with no day but also includes dates that are completely empty. His added filter to be sure the date is not empty is appropriate for your purposes: Tag Type Group is Death AND Date - Day Date Is Not Empty END Second, I am sorry if my edited answer was unclear (probably too brief) about how to filter this filtered group to be sure you also have a burial date for these people that you have identified with a death date but no day. The way I filter a filtered group is the method I (briefly) explained using a flag. To describe it in more detail, it is really three steps: 1) Create a temporary flag where everyone in the dataset is set to the same value, e.g. 'N'. This is easy since simply creating a new custom flag will automatically set everyone to have the defined default value of that flag. 2) Run a report with the first filter to change the flag using the Secondary Output to some other value for those people that match the filter, e.g. 'Y'. 3) Run a second report with the second filter to identify those people that you do not want to be in the first group, and set the flag using the Secondary Output to something different than what you set in the first report, e.g. back to 'N'. It is likely that this second filter may be changing flags on some people that did not have their flag set via the first filter, but that doesn't really matter because it does change those that did have their flag set that you now wish to exclude. The key point is that a Secondary Output flag action does not change the flag value for anyone that does not match the filter used on that report. So if they don't match the second filter, the 'Y' people will stay 'Y'. In step 2) I would use the filter to set the flag for the people that have a death date but the day is blank. Then in step 3) I would use the filter to remove from that group those people who have no burial date. The people that are left with the flag set from the first filter are those that you want, in other words they are filtered from the filtered group. Then based on this flag you can either filter the Project Explorer or create a Focus Group to only look at these people. Once I am done with the flag I usually delete it. Hope this better explains my method for filtering a filtered group,

What may not be obvious is that the "Comes before" operator is based on characters not numeric values. Try a List of Events with a filter of: Tag Type Group is Death AND Date - Day In the second line you simply put the single digit one as the value. I think this will get what you want. =====edit===== I just re-read your question, and this will only get you close, but depending upon the number it may be good enough. To refine it more I would have the List of Events set a temporary Flag to 'Y' as a Secondary Output. Then run a List of Events with a filter of: Tag Type Group is Burial AND Date Is Empty END to set the same temporary Flag to 'N' to exclude the people who don't have a Burial date. I think this should get closer to only the people you want.

I haven't tried it myself, but you might experiment with a List of Names report rather than a List of People. I would think that output columns that might be useful would be: Primary Marker Last,Given ID Number Subject Birth Group* tag; Date Subject Death Group* tag; Date I don't see a way to get the Birth/Death place information, but maybe this would be enough? Hope this gives you ideas,

Peter,If web-reports is your goal, then I strongly urge you to purchase Second Site It directly reads your TMG database to produce web pages. While highly configurable, you can get great web pages just using the defaults, and it also has automatic language help similar to TMG. Not affiliated with Second Site, just a very satisified user,

Peter, To expand on a comment I made above, I believe that the issue of "standard" tags is primarily a problem only in predefined printed reports. In my opinion, in the modern world these are being replaced by web reports, such as can be produced by the program Second Site. I believe the problems with the legacy printed reports are caused by the fixed (and often convoluted) method required to define and document linkages to the narratives of people in such reports. These reports have created ways that work well in leafing forward and backward through the printed pages for the limited set of "traditional" family structure linkages, but as you point out they have problems with "non-traditional" linkages and family structures. In contrast, "web" reports have no such problems thanks to the hyperlink. Any two people related to each other in any manner, whether "traditional" or "non-traditional", can have their names in both narratives mutually hyperlinked to each other's narrative. Thus navigating forwards and backwards through any kind of relationship is a simple click. There is no need for fixed output structures or numbering schemes based on only a limited set of linkage mechanisms to get from one person's narrative to another's. Further, it becomes trivial to group a list of people based on whatever relationship desired where the names in the list are links to their individual narratives. For this reason I choose to produce only Individual Narrative web reports, and share my genealogy with my relatives using web files on a CD. Even many genealogy repositories are starting to ask for family histories in electronic form rather than as printed reports. For me this web form eliminates nearly all the restraints caused by printed reports that are forced to be based only on certain fixed "standard" TMG tags and report structures. It is also why I am less concerned about these printed report restrictions and whether certain tags are "standard" or not. This is just my bias but hope this gives you further ideas,

Hi Peter, I also believe that a custom separate tag, like you decided seemed to do "most" of what you want, is a method in TMG that gives you a lot of control and flexibility. It is also what I prefer to use for "children" in a family that I know or believe are not genetic biological offspring of the parent(s). For example, see my tags concerning Adoption. However, this does not fully resolve the issue when you produce certain kinds of predefined reports that rely on the Primary child/parent relationship tags. Further, it is not what I would use for children that I "assume" are the biological offspring but may have little or no documentation, which I "think" is your situation. In my opinion the Journal reports, especially when you choose one of the preconfigured styles, are intentionally the most restrictive in their format and enforced use of certain "standard" tags. I would suggest that the problems you are having are not so much with TMG and "standard" tags, but in the enforced use of only certain tags by TMG for fixed purposes in this particular restrictive report type. I am sure you noticed that TMG does not offer the option of defining your own sentence for a Relationship tag that links one child to one parent. However, a Relationship tag does provide for a Memo, which I would use as part of "my way" to record your situation. First, I would define and use an additional set of custom Relationship tags. I have defined a set of custom tags that end in "-Can" which to me means this is a "candidate" for a parent/child relationship, my way of defining this relationship as an assumption. I would use this tag type for your earlier Mother/Child relationships, but would also make this relationship Primary since for these children this is the assumed biological relationship. This would also provide an alert on the Details screen that further documentation is needed for this relationship, but would cause these children to be treated in fixed reports like the Journal as her children. I would then add a Memo to each of these Relationship tags documenting that this relationship is an assumption. Then I would set the Journal report Options under the Memos tab for "Memos that are not included in the sentence" (which of course applies to Relationship memos) to print as Footnotes, and be sure to also check the box for "Include relationship memos". This footnote will be output whether the Journal follows the mother or father line. I even like where that the footnotes are output. If the child has their own section it is referenced in that section as part of their Birth sentence, if not it is simply referenced in the child's listing under the parent. I have not done so, since this tag type is so new, but would probably "also" construct a NarrativeChildren tag to further highlight my assumptions as Terry has described. As I always say, hope this gives you ideas,

And of course I won't know if anyone uses my sentences no matter how passionately I may feel about them. Yes those are the (probably sensitive) pieces of information that one would really like to know. In my case, I have my ancestor as the six-year-old Robert Riley recorded in the 1860 census as "Adopted" into the Denbow household, with other data reinforcing Robert's surname as Riley, but absolutely no other information on his birth parents. Oh well, we all have our brick walls to beat our heads against!