Michael Hannah

All exhibit links to external exhibits supported by the GEDCOM specs are exported to GEDCOM (as well as the appropriate exhibit data).

Well, Jim, I said I had not tried it . I still recommend avoiding GEDCOM if at all possible.

I can't find an obvious way to add a photo for a person...So what tag should I use to add a person's photo?

Ummm... I think you are making this harder than it is. You don't use a tag. In the Person View if you click on the Exhibits button and click Add the exhibit attaches to the person. If you open a Tag and click on the Exhibits button in the Tag Entry screen and click Add it attaches to the tag. It is that simple.

Also, how is it recommended to handle group photos such as family photos?

That is a matter of taste. Some people attach the exhibit multiple times. Others create a custom tag, maybe called Marr-Img for marriage photos, attach the photo to the tag and link all appropriate people as Witnesses.

Finally, do images added to the database ever get exported in GEDCOM exports (I mean the photo info [like file name and path], since GEDCOM doesn't handle non-text data).

While the GEDCOM standard does include specifications for multimedia information, this is seldom handled or recognized by most programs that deal with GEDCOM. I have not exhaustively tried this, but doubt that TMG (like most genealogy programs) deals with such in GEDCOM. GEDCOM was intended as a means to communicate the bare genealogy data via a computer file. The standard has not been modified for several years, and some would claim that in the light of modern programs like TMG and GenBridge the standard is both obsolete and dead. I recommend that you not invest too much time or effort in working with GEDCOM if you can avoid it.

This has got to be easy.... doesn't it?

Hi Ken,

 

Yep it is, but the real issue is understanding the concepts around the bits and parts of TMG and what they mean. I recommend viewing Terry Reigel's Tutorials and Articles on using TMG as an introduction, especially his basic concepts. However, let me try explaining a concept that I think is bothering you...

 

I think you are caught in the issue that you are smarter than your computer and have more knowledge than it has . All that TMG knows about an exhibit is that it is a computer file of "stuff" which could be anything. You know that this is the image that is a scan of your source for information. I think you are trying to figure out how to tell TMG what you know about that exhibit, when you should simply be telling TMG about the source itself. Perhaps it would help to approach it from a different viewpoint. TMG wants to store your genealogy data in a manner than can ultimately produce various reports. At best an exhibit can be printed out "as is" and if it is an image it might also have a caption, but that does not help TMG know what information is inside the exhibit in a way to produce meaningful reports. Sources are intended to be cited to various data that is entered with TMG tags, and to produce footnotes and bibliographies. But TMG needs the source fields (like title, author, dates, etc.) entered so that TMG can manipulate them appropriately for report output. That is what the TMG source record is for, plus the citations to a source. An exhibit kind of "just sits there" on your computer, as far as TMG is concerned.

Still trying to figure out how to say that an exhibit contains information that documents the data I put in a tag

But in reality it doesn't, which is why you are having trouble telling TMG that it does. You were very correct to come to the conclusion that you needed a TMG source record, but not in wanting the source to refer to your computer file exhibit. In your example (a scan of a birth certificate) the scan is not the source, it is simply a digital image copy of the certificate. The document is the source, which is why the TMG source record would be filled in with the data referring to the certificate, not the exhibit. At best the scan in the computer file simply proves you had your hands on the source (the certificate) at one point in time, and allows others to view that scan as an alternative to having to get their hands on and view the actual source. Think if it in terms that an exhibit is totally optional (you don't need to actually have a scan to record the information), but the source record referring to the certificate is required to document the source. Continuing with this example, your TMG Birth tag where you entered the place and date of the birth should cite the TMG source, which should refer to the certificate itself, not the exhibit scan which is just a computer file copy.

 

One of the nice features of TMG is the ability to link computer file exhibits, such as scans like yours, to various elements of TMG to help you quickly access them. Further these exhibits can be chosen to print out to enhance reports. And elevator has described how to make a link from your computer file that is the scanned image to the TMG source record. But such linkages are just aids to get to your computer data. The real source linkages are done by the citations to TMG source records that have the data that identifies the actual sources: the real documents, certificates, books, etc.

 

Not sure if this helps or makes things less clear , but ask more questions and maybe someone else can make it clearer.

You are most welcome. The more you learn the more you will be able to successfully use TMG, and ultimately be able to answer other people's questions yourself.

But what I was actually looking for was a data MODEL: what are the logical objects in the database (people, places, events, citations, sources, etc.) and how do they relate. via a graphical model

This may not be "exactly" what you are looking for, and may not be a "formal" graphical model, but I have found the visual model of sticky notes that Terry uses when describing Terry's Basic Concepts of TMG to be a pretty good description of the logical objects in TMG. You might start there.

This program seems pretty powerful (from what little I know so far). Are the top 4 programs pretty much the same in what they do, or does TMG have more capabilities? (Just wondering)

Welcome, Linda, to TMG and the forum. Different programs have different features and capabilities. What programs are "top" depends upon who is doing the ranking, and what features and capabilities that ranker values most. Some rankings on the Internet have been viewed as suspect because they were actually made by rankers that had relationships with some of the product companies. However, I do not feel it valuable or productive to compare programs. All I can give is my personal opinion that TMG is absolutely the best genealogy program for the features and capabilities I desire. My focus is on customization (the ability to store and report data "my way") and find that TMG has more flexibility than any other program I have tried. And one of its best features (in my opinion) is the wonderful and amazingly helpful collection of users participating in this forum and the TMG e-mail list who are always happy to provide ideas on how to accomplish what you want to do.

 

Again, welcome to the community of users of TMG. I feel sure TMG will meet your needs.

Terry's replies explained (more clearly than I did, which is why he has a popular book ) precisely what I intended to say. I also agree that F2 is not a "work around" and did not intend to imply that. My only reason for mentioning F2 was to make it clear, as Terry explained, that the list of places F2 presents is different than the entire MPL. I mentioned a method to make the F2 list more similar to displaying an entire MPL, but in my opinion that is not a "work around".

... my problem is I have some places that aren't referenced by any event and yet still don't get removed by the optimize command...

As quoted from the TMG Help topic on Optimize:

Optimizing will not remove unused place records for which a start year, end year, comment, or short place name have been recorded.

For example, I added comments for those places in my MPL that do not (yet) have any events linked to them so they are not deleted by Optimize. While you did check your Repository records for your places that have no events linked, it is worth noting that places for Repositories work just like places in event Tags. The MPL is also where the place data is stored for Repositories, and the Repository record simply links to the place entry in the MPL just like event tags. Again, the MPL avoids duplication, so you could have a place entry for a Repository that is the exact same place used in one or more event Tags and there would be only one place entry in the MPL for all of these links.

 

Hope this makes things clearer,

Definately make a backup and restore. Further, make the backup to your hard-drive, not directly to a removable media. Then copy to the media and copy from the media to the new computer's hard-drive (or move directly from one hard-drive to the other via network connection if you have one). Then restore from the backup on the new computer's hard-drive.

Places are not stored with events. They are separate entries in their own separate data table, which is called the Master Place List (MPL). There are a number of issues concerning apparently duplicate places in the MPL and apparently unlinked places because it is a separate data table. The maintenance command "Optimize" is essential when modifying the MPL and "cleaning up" places as that command will do the actual merging of truly identical entries and the actual deletion of entries you have marked for deletion. The existence of places as a separate data table has two implications.

 

First, there is nothing wrong with having place entries in the MPL that are not linked to anything. I have several that I have entered when I was standardizing how I wanted entries in my MPL to look that I knew I would need "some day" but that day has not yet come for all of them.

 

Second, tags simply link to the place entry in the MPL. Separate tags that are the same place do not have separate place entries in each tag. This is both good news and bad news. The good news is that if you change the place entry in the Master Place List then all events that are linked to that one place entry have their place changed. The bad news is that if you only meant it to affect one tag you may have inadvertently affected lots of tags. That is why the Events button is valuable when dealing with place entries in the Master Place List to show you all the event tags linked to this place entry.

 

Finally, when entering new places it is tempting to use the F2 function key when the cursor is in a place field in the tag entry screen to find existing entries in the MPL for that place field. Unwanted duplicates or unwanted changes to the MPL are often introduced due to the clever and (probably) useful but non-intuitive (to me) functioning of the F2 key as it applies to searching for existing entries in the MPL. In searching the MPL, F2 finds all entries that match what is entered in the field containing the cursor and any non-blank higher level fields from that point on. Only MPL entries where all lower level fields are blank are displayed as choices even though the MPL may have multiple entries with non-blank lower fields and your tag entry may have values in these lower field. These other entries are not shown because TMG has no way to determine which one, if any, you want. When the F2 list is displayed TMG explicitly labels the list of entries with the field names of only the cursor field and higher trying to warn you that it is not showing these lower fields. The only way to ensure that when you use F2 you search the entire MPL is to force a non-blank value in the Addressee [L1] field of every place, and always put your cursor in a blank [L1] field when you use F2 on a tag entry screen. In effect that subverts the feature of the F2 key and shows the entire MPL. Many proposals have been offered concerning non-blank [L1] fields, but that is beyond the scope of this current discussion. A simpler alternative is just to bring up the actual MPL when trying to determine if you have already entered a specific place to remind you of how you entered it and spelled it.

 

Hope this sheds a little more light on the MPL,

Terry is correct about this issue. Depending upon what you want to do, there is one other possible "work around" that may get you close. If you can produce a report that will list the ID numbers of the people concerned, you could add a completely new TAG to all these people, and cite a specific SOURCE to that new tag all as one operation. Not sure if this will be of value, but you may want to check out John Cardinal's TMG Utility with the topic "Add Events". You cannot (currently) do exactly what you want as a group operation, but this may help?

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

John has provided an excellent description of these names. Creating this Name-Marr tag as an alternative name for this person gives one added feature in TMG which I use a lot. Each Event tag offers the option of selecting any of the defined alternate names to be used instead of the primary name as part of the narrative text that will be printed in reports associated with that event. Really allows you the ability to customize your reports.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

As for the second part of your post, I am not familiar with TNG, but I do use Second Site. The latter was designed for use with TMG to produce extremely excellent web pages which use all the features of TMG, include exhibits and images. In my opinion, having worked on the GEDCOM standard, that format is extremely limited and intended to be a "lowest common denominator" method of transferring data. While GEDCOM can define images, the process is limited at best. Futher, you will soon discover that many of the best features of TMG, such as sentences, split memos, and witnesses, to name only a few, are not supported in GEDCOM and thus cannot be output to GEDCOM.

 

If your goal is to build web pages from your TMG datasets, I strongly urge you to investigate Second Site. You will find that it makes use of all the power of web pages, including style sheets. Futher, it has its own user support ListServ forum where other SS users are happy to help you learn to use its powerful features.

 

I am not affiliated with Second Site, simply a very satisified user,

As with many things in TMG there are multiple ways to accomplish this. Perhaps the simplest might be to bring up the Project Explorer (PE), and click on the "funnel-like" button to filter the PE. In the Filter you could select "Address ..." "# of Tags" ">Is greater than" 0. That would give you the list of all people with Address tags. You could then sellect them all and add them to a Focus Group to work on over multiple sessions. Alternatively, you could simply run a "List of People" report with the same filter to print out the list and check them off as you worked. Another option would be a "List of Events" report with a filter of "Tag Type..." "Label" "= Equals" "Address" and set the print options to output appropriate columns such as the Principals ID numbers, or Names, and even the date, place and memo of the tag so you could see whether it needed to be edited.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

You are most welcome, Bob, that is what this forum is for.

I have found it wise never to ignore the error messages. There is no guarantee that everything worked correctly even if it appears so. When moving between my laptop and server I have set up a folder on each hard drive where TMG expects the backup SQZ files to be for that system. I always copy the SQZ to that folder, even when I use a flash drive to move them from one to the other. It is only one extra step and worth it for my peace of mind. Following this procedure I have never had these errors.

This is very commonly done, and one of the nicest features of TMG. Terry Reigel's TMG Tips about accents uses this very circumstance to demonstrate that feature. See his page about Showing the direct line for complete step-by-step details on how to do this.

Michael - what is the difference between:

BIRT USA OH Washington GOV 18843752

and

BIRT USA OH GOV 1947 Jones, John J.

(which use quite different formats).

The reply that Terry gave was exactly what I meant. I have many references to various registers that have data records about birth/marriage/burial for multiple people, whether for a church or some governmental agency like a county, and that is what I mean by a collection.

Also, I was thinking of including the involved surname(s) in the abbreviation but it looks like the people here aren't doing that. Any comments on the value of doing this or not doing it?

As shown by the second example above, I do include the surname when the entire source is about only one person or set of people, like an individual birth certificate or couple's marriage certificate, but do not do this when the source contains data about multiple people, like the collections mentioned above. Again, it depends upon how specific your source entry is in the TMG Master Source List. Ask yourself whether you will be using this single TMG source entry for multiple citations involving multiple people, each with different citation details. If so don't include surnames in that source's abbreviation, if not, then include the names. However, there is value in keeping the abbreviation short.

...some of it is over my head because I don't know about all the sources you are talking about...

Don't worry about it. All will become clearer as you experience ever more varied sources. There are source types that people discuss that I have never encountered simply because they have yet to be relevant to anyone in my trees. But I store away tips concerning them since I fully expect I will encounter them someday. Focus on what you have and then expand as you need.

 

Hope this gives you (further) ideas,

While they may not be locked, are they enabled? Click File > Data Set Manager and be sure all four have a check mark. You also might check out Terry's Tips about Copying or Moving People Between Data Sets He gives very useful hints about this topic.

You're welcome. While there may not always be a direct way to do what you want, with the flexibility of TMG there is usually some way to accomplish your goal. Glad you found one.

Unfortunately I don't see that one at the library.

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained, "Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace". Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-8063-1781-6.

 

I bought it from the Wholly Genes store but I have heard it is available elsewhere.

I think if you are looking for "best practices" then Elizabeth Shown Mills' latest book Evidence Explained would be the best place to start (and possibly end. ) Of course, as she has often said herself, these are guidelines and you should tailor your citation methods to your publication needs.

I think they should have implemented the Residence tag in line with what you did, as part of the address group!

Ahh... well thanks for the vote of confidence. However, TMG has been around for quite some years and evolved/improved over time. One of the consequences is that there are "artifacts" of old versions that have to remain to avoid affecting long-time users who have come to rely on those old features.

If tags are in different groups, but not in the HISTORY Group, TMG utility can change them to a tag of another group.

Very true, Teresa, and a good "fall back" for an established dataset. However, I think it is valuable to get used to the groups and learn what their consequences are.

Thanks all - helpful info.

You are most welcome, strathglass, and we look forward to your help to others when you become more familiar with TMG.

I find it really appropriate to use the file date. I am adopted and my (adopted) birth certificate has a file date of several years after my physical birth (actually it is the date of finalization of the adoption). Often such a file date can be a clue to a similar circumstance. I try to use the Local Registrar file date (which is usually a couple of days earlier than the State file date) as this is most likely to be the "as of" date of the data in the certificate.

 

As a general guideline, for all sources I find I try to record everything that the source tells me. Often I am unaware of the value of a piece of data at the time but find that nugget of information vital to opening a research door later.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

As I mentioned, I use my “ResidedAddress” tag where a person once lived for a defined period of time with a beginning and end, because I care to keep track of that address for future research, such as in City Directories. I enter the date based on my source information, such as "From X to Y" so it works in my custom sentences:

 

Male: "[D] [P1F] lived [L]"

Female: "[D] [P2F] lived [L]"

resident: "[D] [W] was living with [P1] [L]"

 

I put a couple as the two principals, and have a Witness role of "resident" for others, and use a split memo with [M1] for a common comment (such as "in the white house on the corner") and [M2], [M3], and [WM] unique to the individuals concerned.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

I have had joy in the past filtering using the P1 & P2 capability in the List of Events Report for both sides of a Marriage. Now I'm trying to filter for a Child based on a Flag set for a Parent and I'm failing! Help!

Hi Neil,

It is not clear what you are trying to do in the List of Events, but it would depend upon what event tag you were filtering on. However, note that the Relationship tag type is not considered an "Event" and is not listed in the options in a List of Events filter for "Tag Type Group is". Unless the child is a witness/role to an event of the parent, I don't think you can use List of Events to accomplish this.

 

Depending upon what you want to do, maybe you could use a List of People based on the Flag for the Parent and then set a second Flag for the Children. This would be similar to the process used to create the Related Flag that Terry talks about on his web page, but working towards descendants rather than ancestors.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,