Michael Hannah

... I do not see how it addresses the security of TMG data for the long term? It seems that even with processes in place to reinstall TMG in the event of a computer failure, the bottom line is that TMG is finished?

Hi Bil,

For you, how long is long term? In my opinion I do not see TMG as "finished". As I have posted here and on the Refugees list, while development may have ceased and there will be no more bug fixes or new features, the program should still work just fine "as is" for many, many years to come. (As a similar example, my preferred desktop-publishing package ceased development almost 20 years ago and still has more features and works better than many new packages on the market.)

I am desperate to find some other program that will do all that TMG did for me!

You may be "desperate" but my observation of past posts on the Refugees list suggests that currently there is no such other program. Of course, as Terry points out, how close another program will come to "what TMG did" for you depends on which features of TMG you used. Any other program is sure to be "different" than TMG, and while some have recently been modified to directly import "most" of the data from TMG, unless and until they choose to add more TMG-like features you will have to modify the data to adapt to their different way of doing things. They are all likely to have some new nice features TMG did not have, and not have some TMG features you would like them to have.

Because TMG will continue to work I choose to "wait and see" for several years before even considering migrating to another program. And at my age I may never need to use a different genealogy program. Because I am staying with TMG for some time I definitely have the final version, and would recommend obtaining it if you can. Just my opinion.

I moved your post to this separate topic so others would see it and offer suggestions. It was out of context in the topic where you replied.

I don't have a Mac, but have you reviewed the separate post about using TMG on a Mac with Parallels? See here. There may be something special about such a setup which that post will reveal.

You are correct, Terry. These are only the Change logs. Like you I am unable to locate the list of new and changed features published when each version was first released.

However, I also agree with you, Terry, that I find many of the new features and bug fixes in Version 9 an improvement over Version 7.

The change log for Version 8.08, which is the last V8 version and mentions all the changes in V8, is available here

The change log for Version 9.05, which is the final version and mentions all the changes in V9, is available here

Hi Eva,

This is a recurring issue about using a genealogy program, whose purpose is to document genetic relationships, to try to document family/social relationships. TMG assumes, and enforces, the Primary "parents" of a child being one male and one female and assumes it is a genetic relationship. But TMG does not assume this genetic relationship is any kind of social or family relationship. There is no requirement in TMG that these two biological parents also be linked together by any tag in the Marriage group. That is why TMG will, by default, assume the "event" of a marriage to be between a male and a female, but does not require it to be. As Terry notes, TMG simply "warns" that the Principals of a tag type in the Marriage group are not of opposite genders as expected, but allows such Principals to be recorded in such a tag if desired.

I view a child in a family of two people of the same sex similar to any child who has been "adopted" into a different family, whether or not the parents in either such family are married. The biological parents are still its genetic parents, but the adopted or foster or whatever parents are clearly the parents of its new family. Since TMG always assumes Primary parent/child relationships are genetic relationships, it takes some contortions to record relationships like adopted families in TMG, but it can be done with varying degrees of success.

For my lengthy discussion of those options I have discovered which can be used to "somewhat" force TMG to deal with families of adopted children, see the detailed Adoption topic in the Custom Tag Type Descriptions chapter of my on-line book.

Hope this gives you ideas for your "family" situation,

Thanks to the incentive Kaye gave me to test the details of the Descendant Indented Chart I have updated the information about this report in the Style chapter of my on-line book. Details of how family groups are sorted in this chart are given in much more detail in a section about that report. Hopefully this explanation will help others better understand their output in this report.

Kaye,

I have e-mailed you with a lengthy explanation of what you are seeing in the charts you sent me. The key is that family groups are output based on a single "family" sort date which could come from either a tag in the marriage group or the eldest child's non-blank birth date. The non-obvious issue is that if there is a marriage group tag, and that tag has a blank date, then the entire family will sort before any family with a non-blank family sort date.

Okay, Kaye, I think I understand this report better thanks to you sending your sample chart off-list to me.

First, to explain the "gap"
I could see the "gap" in the line between two children who are in the same family on your chart. It is not a TMG issue. In fact, it is not really there . It is caused by the specific "zoom" value you are using to view your chart in Word. These lines are not "drawn" in this chart. Instead the document includes text characters which look like lines. Windows has to convert these individual line-drawing characters into pixels on the screen, and only does an approximate job. To cause the gap to "magically" disappear, change the zoom value. The Healy chart was being displayed at 132% zoom. Change that to 134% and you will see the gap disappear. Whether or not you see a gap when you print will also depend upon what zoom you use for printing.

Next, to explain illegitimate
You keep referring to "illegitimate" children, but their legitimacy really has no bearing on the issue. As I mentioned earlier, grouping of families is only based on the one or two parents linked as Primary to the child. In your own example of two children of the child "S", the first child "K" was born before the marriage of the parents (and thus was illegitimate) but the second child "R" was born after the marriage (and thus was legitimate). Yet TMG groups both children together equally within the single family of children born to that spouse. The legitimacy of a child has no bearing on the chart, only the child's linkage to its parents.

Finally, to explain the order of families
Thanks to your example chart I learned that my earlier description of sort order of families was inaccurate/incomplete. It turns out that if there is no Primary marriage tag with a date to use, TMG uses the earliest (sort) date of the Primary Birth group tag of any child in that family. Thus TMG works harder than I thought it did to try to get the list of separate families in an appropriate date order. The revised description based on my further testing is:

• All children are grouped together within the same family based on the spouse (or unknown spouse). All children who only have this one parent linked as their Primary parent will be grouped as a single "unknown spouse" family. (While they may actually be children of several different unknown spouses, TMG has no better alternative than to group them as one "family".) Each entire family group is sorted based on its own single "family" sort date.
  
• If there is a Primary marriage group tag for the parents, the (sort) date of that tag is used for the family sort date.
  
  If there is a Primary marriage group tag, but it has no (sort) date, a blank date is used for the family sort date which will sort before non-blank family sort dates.
  
• If there is no Primary marriage group tag, the earliest (sort) date of a Primary tag in the Birth group of any child in that family is used as the family sort date. Children with no Birth group (sort) date will sort first within that family, but will not affect the sort order of the family unless no child has a non-blank Birth date.
  
  If there is no Primary marriage group tag and no Primary Birth group (sort) date for any child in that family, a blank date is used for the family sort date which will sort before non-blank family sort dates.
  
  If there are multiple families with the same date (or lack of date) for sorting, an order among those families has not been determined and should be considered random.

This should explain why your example child "S", who only has the mother linked and thus has an "unknown spouse", is listed before the subsequent family where there is a marriage group tag with a date and a spouse. This subsequent marriage group tag has a date, so that is used for its family sort date. The birth date of the child whose father is unknown is used for the sort date of the "unknown" family, which is a date earlier than the marriage tag date.

This is actually very clever of TMG, as it is more likely to put the various families in chronological order whether or not there is a marriage group tag with a date or even any marriages.

Conclusion

As best I can tell there is no problem with TMG here. There really is no gap in lines between children in the same family, and the order of families is the best TMG can do to get close to an appropriate chronological order. As a final note, I tested all of this in Version 6 through Version 9 with no differences.

Hope this helps explain,

Kaye,

Sorry you are still upset. Obviously I still do not completely understand your concern, as I cannot understand what difficulty you are seeing other than what I described earlier.

First, the Version of the program and its report generator is not the issue. I still have several earlier versions (Version 6.12, Version 7.04, and Version 8.08) on my computer for testing and get exactly the same output in all of them as I described earlier for the final Version 9.05. There is no difference in their behavior for this report. All base their output on the presence and date of a Primary tag for the parents in the Marriage group, and whether the child has one or both parents linked, as I explained.

So yes the chart you created is the way the programme is handling illegitimate children now, but it wasn't always the case.

As best I can tell this has always been the case. I believe there must be something different in your data to cause whatever different output you are seeing.

Is your main concern that when you de-select the "Unknown spouses" option on this report you get no indication other than the small gap that the children are another family? I believe that this "gap" output when there truly is an "unknown spouse" has always been this way for this report ever since that option was introduced.

Perhaps it would help to more completely explain what an "unknown spouse" means in the program. First, in TMG to be a "spouse" does not require a marriage. Two people begetting a child together is sufficient to define the other parent as a "spouse". Second, a child simply being born when the parents are not married (being illegitimate) does not cause the other parent/spouse to be unknown.

If both biological parents are linked as parents with Primary relationship tags to the child, then that other parent/spouse will be "known" whether or not they were married at the time. The other linked parent will be listed as the "spouse" whether or not these parents are linked together with a tag in the marriage group. The absence of a tag in the marriage group (which is likely if the child is illegitimate) will only affect the sort order of this family in the report as I described earlier.

The only way to get an "unknown spouse" is when the child has only one parent linked with a Primary relationship tag to it. Only those "one-parent" children will be listed in that one parent's chart as being from an "unknown spouse" and will have this "gap" issue if the option is unselected.

I am convinced that any differences you are seeing are due to what tag type, if any, you have used to connect the parents; whether that tag is Primary; whether that tag type is in the Marriage group; and whether one or two parents are linked with Primary relationship tags to the child.

I am going to send the chart to you via a word attachment. Why is it ok and new entries not?...
So it is only new families that this is happening to I THINK...
If I get reports like I am getting now I find it is not acceptable...

Again, I am convinced that something is different in your data about either the tag types or the way you are entering these new families and children versus the other families. And I am still unsure what you find "not acceptable".

As best I can tell the program is consistent in how it produces the output for this chart based on the data provided, and its behavior has been unchanged at least since Version 6.

So I was wondering if changing to V9 is possible. Will it solve the problem and can I actually purchase it.

It is my understanding that there is no longer anyone selling licenses to V9, so that is not an option.

I will send you a personal message here on this forum with my e-mail address. If these comments have not helped and you wish, you can send me something directly which may help me better understand your concerns.

Hi Kaye,

I can easily replicate what you see in a small test family.

I believe there is nothing really wrong here. The program is simply doing the best it can with the options and data (or lack of data) you have provided.

First, my testing shows the order of the "families" listed on this report is based only on the Marriage group tags marked Primary for this parent with their various spouses. Doing a set of tests on the various possibilities of data associated with marriage group tags I observe the following.

• If there is a marriage group tag for the parents, those families are listed in those tags' (sort) date order
• If there is a marriage group tag, but it has no (sort) date, those families are listed first.
• If there is no marriage group tag (as would be the case for any "unknown spouse"), those families are listed last. Families with no marriage group tag are last whether an other parent is linked to the child or the other parent is unknown.

Next there is the "Unknown spouses" option. As you know that is controlled by the report option on the Miscellaneous tab. When you "unselect" that option the report eliminates the entire line. That line would have the leading '+' sign as well as the text "unknown spouse". As you have noted, when that line is not present it is difficult to recognize that the child is not also a child of the immediately previous spouse, as there is simply a small gap where the line of text identifying the spouse would have been. Unfortunately I think that is the consequence of eliminating the "unknown spouse" line of text.

While this may not be what you prefer, I think that is the best TMG can do. If TMG were still being developed we could make a "wish" for more/better indication of the missing "unknown spouse" line. But unfortunately we now must learn how to cope with the way the final version of the program works.

The simplest "workaround" that comes to my mind to help you in this situation is to produce the report with a report destination to Word and post process the chart in Word. I would leave the "Unknown spouses" option selected. Then I would search and either delete or replace the text of "unknown spouse" with something more meaningful. If you also wished to change the order of those "unknown" families, you could then Cut/Paste into a different order at that time.

Sorry I cannot give you a better way to deal with this. Hopefully at least you will now understand what is going on.

Bitmap is very different than .jpg or .jpeg. It has considerably less resolution.

Everything I have read says that the file types are identical. Don't use some program which will "convert" the image type, just open the directory/folder where the file is stored and "rename" the file, changing the spelling of the extension from "jpeg" to "jpg". If you have your Windows options set to "hide" the extension for filenames, change that option so you can see the full filename and then rename the file changing only the extension.

(Internet Explorer is not the same as Windows Explorer)

Hi Lorna,

Glenn Gilbert has done the most testing of TMG with Parallels, and has written several posts. His latest post specifically talks about using TMG 9 on Parallels 10. See that post here. You might also consider sending him a personal message with a specific question.

You are most welcome, Candace.

There really are no "standards" for these citations. It is really up to the publisher. If you self publish then you only have to satisfy yourself that you have been complete enough for your reader to find your citation. If you publish in a journal then they set the "standard". Even Ms Mills herself calls her books guidelines.

Feel free to post more questions, either here or on TMG-L.

Glad to help, and hope my site can give you ideas.

Not sure about what would be the appropriate skill set for a contractor, but would probably look for someone with graphic skills and familiarity with genealogy charts.

By the way, you posted this twice so I have deleted the duplicate.

Hi Candace,

How one cites sources is directly dependent upon how you wish the source information to be output in your reports. In TMG this also gets into whether one wants to "lump" many citations into one TMG source record using differing Citation Details, or "split" citations to each have their own TMG source record with a minimal Citation Detail.

For ideas, I highly suggest you begin by a review Terry Reigel's Tips web pages, especially his page about Census Information. His Tips are designed to help the new user.

I think most people will chose to cite a census record with the source being the NARA film itself, and then indicate (often using a TMG Repository Link) that they "viewed" the NARA record on Ancestry.

If you want to peruse some advanced and very customized concepts, you could look at the "Census Source Data Entry" chapter of my on-line book. The details of the custom Census Source Type which I have created for my use is described in the Source Templates chapter here.

Welcome to TMG, and hope this gives you ideas,

Hi Jamie,

I think the easiest way to find the use of a given source is by its Source Number as reported in the Master Source List. I have defined a configuration for a List of Citations report which I save for repeated use. It also has a Filter of:

Source Number // = Equals // [?] // END

I save this Filter with a name (e.g. "source number") since with "[?]" it will prompt for the source number.

I then choose Output Columns in the Report options of:

Linked Record; Subject 1; ID

Linked Record; Subject 2; ID

Linked Record; Tag Type

Linked Record; Subject 1 and 2; Last, First

You can also add any other columns you may want, like Citation Detail.

And I sort the report by Subject 1's ID.

Running this report configuration and entering a source number when prompted should give you a meaningful list of the use of that source.

As for a list of the use of a particular type of tag, try a List of Events report with a filter something like:

Tag Type... // Label // = Equals // 1930 Census

You would probably want at least the Output Column of "Prin1 ID".

Hope this gives you ideas,

Are you sure you downloaded TMG 8, and not the latest TMG 9? The unlock codes would be different. Did you store the applicable TMG version number with your saved registration number?

Sure, Joe, easy.

List of Citations report with a Filtered group of:

Source Number // = Equals // [?] // END

I have created and saved a Filter of this definition and then created and saved a Report Definition which uses this Filter, since I commonly will want such a list. (The filter value of '[?]' lets me reuse this report/filter and just enter the source number as needed.)

Hope this gives you ideas,

First, John, you posted this twice so I deleted the duplicate.

Second, sorry John, but the error about a PJC file is usually accurate. I suspect that you were using TMG when your computer crashed and the TMG files were badly corrupted. In all cases I can recollect of this error the only solution was to recover from a backup.

As for your recovery issue, this is usually caused by the project's backup .SQZ file not being located on the main internal disk drive. If your .SQZ file is on some backup media, like a thumbdrive or CD, first copy it to disk and then recover from there.

Hope this helps,

Jim should be able to help you with your primary printing problem.

However, I noted that you said:

When I attempted to print to the PDF printer...

You probably already know this, but just to be clear to anyone else reading this thread, you do not set the Printer options to "Print" to a PDF printer. To create a PDF file you simply "Save to" a File type of "Adobe Reader (PDF)". TMG then uses its installed PDF printer code to create the PDF file.

Tom,

I don't understand what you mean by "cannot find my installed printer". What version of V9 are you using? What actions are you doing in TMG to try to select your printer and then print? What error messages are shown following what actions? More information might give one of us fellow users more ideas to help.

Although "Printer Setup" is in the TMG "File" menu, most people leave it's options set to "Windows default", and change which printer is that default in Windows itself. When you open the "Printers" window (in Windows, not in TMG), does it show your desired printer as the Windows default?

When you actually choose a Report from the "Report" menu, the Report Definition Screen only allows specifying "Printer" at that point, which will try to print to the printer set in "Printer Setup" from the "File" menu.

Hope this gives you ideas,

Correct.

When in TMG open Preferences. Now look under Program Options // General. Note the option near the bottom labeled: Default Project Path. Be sure that points to the correct path for TMG to find your projects