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Morbius

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Everything posted by Morbius

  1. I have been using TMG for so long (since about Version 3) that I intend to continue using it until it just won't work anymore. I find myself wondering, just how many of us diehards are out there. I just (with a little help) loaded Version 9.05 to a new laptop, so I am pretty sure I will get several more years use out of it. I have reached a point in my research where I am writing research papers more than actual research, and I find the TMG reports very useful for that (mostly the individual narrative and family group sheets, but also the journal report). But, I also know there must be life after TMG and I want to be able to pass my years of research along in a usable database. Consequently, I purchased a copy of Roots Magic (because it has an "Import from TMG" capability), as a future back up. When I backup TMG, I import that backup into Roots Magic, and store the resulting file in a way it will be available, should the need arise. But, I am not entirely sure this is the best scheme, and I am wondering if other have made similar provisions.
  2. Residence Tag Sentence Structure

    I think the structure proposed by Jim Byam should do. [W] resided in the household of [P1] <and [P2]> at <[L]> < with [WO]> <[D] If I have it right, this lists everyone in the household, starting with the current witness. With Paul Leroy Lantz as the current witness, I get: Paul Leroy Lantz resided in the household of Harold Frederick Lantz at at Scott Street, Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, with Virginia Eleanora Lantz in December 1916. I think this will do, thanks
  3. I am struggling with the sentence structure for the residence tag. Currently, the sentence structure for principals and witnesses is as follows [P] <|and [PO]> resided at <[L]>< with [WO]> <[D]> For the following circumstances P1: Harold Frederick Lantz [father] P2: blank W1: Paul Leroy Lantz [son] W2: Virginia Eleanora Lantz [daughter] Resided on Scott street, Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts in December 1916 Sentence structure with Harold Frederick Lantz as principal (journal report), comes out as Harold Frederick Lantz resided at Scott Street, Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, with Paul Leroy Lantz and Virginia Eleanora Lantz in December 1916. This is fine, but the sentence structure with Paul Leroy Lantz as principal (journal report) Harold Frederick Lantz resided at Scott Street, Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, with Virginia Eleanora Lantz in December 1916. For some reason the principal (listed in the tag as a witness) does not appear in the sentence The sentence structure works for for the reports I have been generating (mostly journal and individual narrative reports) for the principals, but doesn't work for the witnesses. I would like to generate something like Witness 1, was residing in this place, with Principal 1 and Principal 2 (when present, which it isn't in this case), with other witnesses (when present) on date. Or something like that. I was hoping the collective experience could help me sort this out. thanks
  4. Parents in birth tag

    I didn't find any way to do it either, thanks for the thoughts.
  5. I have been generating a lot of reports, mostly family group sheets and journal reports, and hope to generate a bit more data for spouses beyond name and birth date. Some time back, a friend on this website noted that I could generate a spouses parents names by modifying a birth tag, e.g. [:CR:][:CR:][P] [PAR], was born <[D]> <[L]> Modification (adding [PAR]) generates the following sentence, which was what I was looking for: Mattie Lou Harman, daughter of John Marion Harman I and Virgie Victoria Hager, was born on 18 July 1925. However, I would like to figure out a way to add birth and death year for the parents, e.g Mattie Lou Harman, daughter of John Marion Harman I (1890-1972) and Virgie Victoria Hager (1893-1992), was born on 18 July 1925. I just haven't been able to figure it out, and have been adding this information to reports manually. I was hoping someone here might have an idea.
  6. I know I have come to this party late, but I agree with Terry; though you might consider me an extreme lumper. I try to keep in mind that purpose of a citation is to record where the data came from AND so that other researchers can seek out that same data (there are always transcription errors); replicate the data as scientists would say. This requires two things; identification of the source (e.g. a specific book) and identifying where that source can be found (e.g a specific library). In the case of a census record, finding it these days (post soundex) is rather simple online, but it is necessary to know things like the year, state, county, page number, etc. I know that people have a variety of solutions to the lump-split problem, but I think it is important to keep in mind how the citation will be used by a reader. I am a big splitter, in that I generate an separate source for each household; which means that there could be two or more sources on an individual census page. I do this because I want to be able to go back and look at a specific bit of data, and not search through a collection of census records for a particular year,. I have modified the census source to include: head of household, location, record type, enumeration date], record info (page/sheet number and lines), page, microfilm film number, and the website I downloaded the census pager from (I always keep a jpg image of the census page or the repository where I found the microfilm. I also add occasional notes; such as the hand-writing was hard to read or relatives residing close to each other.
  7. Exporting Data to Excel

    That seems to be what is happening, one Excel file per TMG data table, I have found no way to link the data for an individual person from one table to another. So, I think exporting to MS Excel isn't the solution. I spent a little time yesterday importing the separate GEDCOM files (there are seven) into seven separate TMG projects on an old laptap. So, with the two laptops, I can now compare the data in the seven old databases to my existing TMG project, in order to identify which tags were imported into TMG from each of these old databases. I guess that will have to do, for the moment. Thanks for the help.
  8. Does anyone understand the file structure that results when a TMG database is exported to Microsoft Excel? I have five or six old (1994-2008) databases that I had imported (from a GEDCOM file) into a program previous to TMG (Brothers Keeper 5.0), which was the data originally converted into my TMG database. Unfortunately, Brother's Keeper would keep a list of sources (like a bibliography) associated with each person, but did not associate those sources with specific events, as TMG does. Over the last couple of decades I have been slowly updating my TMG database to include those event-specific citations for those sources (e.g., sourcing a birth date), so that each of those original people have all events sourced. This is fine for sources that are books, etc, but in order to link a specific database source to a specific event I have to be able to look at the original database to identify just which events were included. I can do that do some extent, as I still have those files in a TMG database (I first imported the original GEMCOM into a separate TMG project, which included a list of sources per individual, and then imported that TMG project into my current TMG database; there was some duplication, but not bad), on an old laptop. But, it is a rather rare event when I have both laptops at the time I want to work on the data. I have gotten some of that data, a bit at a time, by generating Family Group Sheets and saving those in MS Word files. But that is pretty tedious. It occurred to me to export the entire database, which worked. But, instead of a single Excel file, I got several, and I don't really understand how they would be useful. There is data, but I can't connect it to any individual person, or even make sense of it. So maybe there is another way. I see that I can also export to Lotus, which - if I remember right - is an old database program. I am wondering if I could then export to Lotus, and then import that file in to MS Access, which I have. I did generate the Lotus files, but had the same result of multiple files. Also, I couldn't get MS Access to open any of the files. I need to be able, in some way, to compare the data in the original database, to the data in my current TMG database, in order to source individual events; and do that in a way that requires the use of only one computer. I have those old databases in their original GEDCOM files, and a separate TMG project. All I have to be able to do is to identify what events were sourced by that original database. I would appreciate all ideas and suggestions; it wouldn't surprise me to learn I am going about this the hardest way possible. That's a tradition in my famly.
  9. I have this problem also, and find that I must check that box every time I open TMG. It is a little annoying, but not all that disruptive. I wonder if there isn't some point, where there is so many tags that TMG defaults to not showing non-primary events.
  10. TMG V9 on a New Laptop

    Jim's idea worked - I should have though of it myself. Thanks for the help.
  11. I am one of the diehards, intent on using TMG until it will no longer work. I am currently using TMG V.9, which is the culmination of a serious of upgrades beginning with version 3. Yesterday I bough a new laptop to replace one that has worn out, and attempted to install version 9.05 from the "final installers" I had received some years ago. I have saved all the information, necessary to unlock the files, but am having trouble. I have a screen shot from the initial installation of v 9.05, but the software doesn't recognize my serial number. I am wondering if I did something wrong during the installation, in which I ran a program named "tmg9setup". Using the sample files, the program seems to be running, but only with the 30 day trial version. Any thoughts or suggestions? I still have the laptop I have been using, and have backups of the files on a thumbdrive, so accessing my data probably isn't a problem.
  12. History Tags

    Correct, having the information show up in a report is what I am interested in. So far, the history tags seem to be working, but it occurred to me there might be a better way of causing that to happen. Thanks.
  13. History Tags

    As I start to use TMG to generate reports for research papers, I find I am using history tags much more often. This, in order to maintain an historical perspective to those reports. For example, a History Tag noting the creation of West Virginia during the civil war, in order to sort out people actually born in West Virginia from those born in a part of Virginia that is now (post civil war) part of West Virginia (usually such people born before June 1853 are reported as having been born in West Virginia, even though it didn't yet exist). I haven't been using Timelines, but I have found History Tags noting such things as when a state became a state, changes to county boundaries, and other historic events useful. I am wondering how others are using History Tags, and was hoping for some additional ideas.
  14. History Tags

    There is always more to learn; thanks for all the comments. I will have to go back and look at the timelines feature again. I am not so much worried over GEDCOM files, at this point, rather in generating reports which I can use for family research papers my daughter and I have been writing. These papers focus on family stories (e.g. the uncle who drove the casket of his deceased son from California to Missouri), and I am always looking for ways to generate reports in a way to speed that process up. Thanks for the ideas.
  15. My daughter and I have been using my TMG database to write up a series of short papers telling some of the family stories I have collected over the years (e.g., the little girl who died from eating poison berries, the uncle who drove cross-country with his infant son's casket, etc.). Such stories are an important and interesting part of genealogy, and I want to make sure the are told and not lost. I have been generating the raw sentence structure for these stories with a combination of the "Individual Narrative Preview with Sources" for data about the subject of the story and the "Family Group Sheet" for data about that subject's children. I am wondering if the might be a simpler way, or if anyone would have some suggestions for improving the process of generating these tales for publication. The papers are relatively short (about 15 printed pages) and are grouped into stories about related people (e.g. great-grandparents and their family as they settled into a small Missouri town - they settled there because that is where their horse died). There are about half dozen such stories per paper, and each story generally consists of how the subject is related (their link to the original immigrant and how they are related to those who will be reading the stories), a bit about their life (including their children, where they resided, etc.), and then the actual tale which caused them to be in the report. to do this I am generating an Individual Narrative and FGS for each subject in the paper, including bibliography and endnotes. My daughter and I then cluge these into a single tale . We add some additional research to fill out the story (the berry story, above, turned out to be true - not all of them are, and that is part of the fun of the paper - and we added some information on the berries, and what information we could find about that particular malady). We then add what photographs we have of the subject, do some editing. We then collect the tales together into a singe paper and have the paper printed locally. We have completed three such papers and are working on the fourth and I am wondering if the might be a simpler way, or if anyone would have some suggestions for improving the process of generating these tales for publication (actually self-publication).
  16. Reports to Tell Family Stories

    I am always interested in how others use TMG, and it seems we have similar ideas. I tend to use the general note tag (though have made some modified tags, such as a note tag with double carriage throughs to separate long notes and quotes from normal tags), and I don't spend much time modifying sentence structure looking for the perfect sentence out of TMG. One thing I have been trying to do is figure out how to figure out how to get the "Individual Narrative Preview with Sources" to generate sentences on children with endnotes. That is why I have to generate both the narrative and the FGS report, the latter to get notes on children into the report.
  17. Unexplained Program Changes

    I do appreciate the thoughts, and I tried both things, it doesn't seem to have worked. Thanks, anyway.
  18. I have experienced some changes to my TMG program, and am at a loss to explain. I am running Gold Edition v. 9.05 on a laptop with Windows 10 Home version. I first noticed the differences when running an Individual Narrative Report. I use this report to generate a MS Word file, which I edited and develop into a research paper for other family members. In the past, when I would click on the REPORT tab, at the bottom would be a list of reports recently used. This list was gone. So I used the general reports list to open an Individual Narrative Report and found that all of my saved settings under the OPTION tab were gone. Regenerating those settings would be a little time consuming, but I seem to be able to do that. After edited some data I then realized that none of the non-primary tags were shown in the window. I click on the FILE tab, PREFERENCES tab, and TAG BOX tab, and check the box for "SHOW NON-PRIMARY EVANTS." The non-primary tags became visible. However, which I close out of the program, that box goes back to unchecked and the non-primary tags are again not visible. I can check that box and see the non-primary tags, and see those tags in the person's window, but I have to redo that every time I start the program. Other changes I have made in that TAG BOX, PREFERENCES settings (e.g. "Show TImelines With Color") but checking the "SHOW NON-PRIMARY EVANTS" never is saved as a setting. I ran the MAINTENANCE programs (Reindex, Optimize, and Validate File Settings), and got a no problems to be corrected notice. I have also tried restarting the laptop. I haven't seen any other effects, at least none that I have noticed. I don't seem to have any problem adding or editing tags. Once I have added the settings I usually use, the reports seem to work normally. I was wondering if anyone would have any thoughts or suggestions.
  19. Narative Report Sentence Structure

    Thanks for all the ideas; I adopted to suggestion for the changed sentence structure and the additional note explaining the circumstances ideas. It works exactly as needed. FYI, I generate these reports (primarily the narrative report and family group sheet report) as a means of getting database information into a word document. I then organize it into a research paper (such as the one I have been working on about how my grandparents met), add photographs and additional notes (e.g. family relationships, historical notes, etc). and then email the document to my daughter in Colorado (I am in Kansas). We pass the draft back and forth by email, writing and editing until we get to a final form). Most recently we completed a family history on the Bolzau family of Arizona. Too bad, TMG is no longer supported, it is a great program, and incredibly versatile. Unfortunately, it requires some effort to learn all the stuff it can do. Thanks for the help.
  20. A question about how sentence structure affects the resulting sentence in an Individual Narrative Report (Gold Edition, version 9.05). I use the narrative reports to generate individual information from the database for research papers I am writing for the family. I have modified the BIRTH tag sentence structure (based on some good advice I found on this forum) to include the parents name in the sentence: [P] [PAR] was born <[D]> <[L]> The resulting sentence, for this particular individual comes out as "Charles Richard Skinnerdorfer, son of Franklin Melburn Hagerdorfer and Mary N. Fraleydorfer, was born on 1 January 3000." The surnames are different because this is a foster son, but I haven't really had a whole lot of success getting this to generate as "foster son." The best I have come up with is : [P] foster [PAR] was born <[D]> <[L]> The sentence generated is "Charles Richard Skinnerdorfer foster, son of Franklin Melburn Hagerdorfer and Mary N. Fraleydorfer, was born on 1 January 3000." Which is not quite right. I was wondering if anyone would have any ideas on how to get this to generate as ", foster son" instead of "foster, son"
  21. Narative Report Sentence Structure

    Thanks for the ideas, I think they will be very helpful. I would like to add a follow-on question to Mr. Hannah's second comment, if I might. I have assigned the foster parent's as this child's primary parents, using the Foster Parents tags, so that he will show up on the list of children for Family Group Sheets and similar reports. His is kind of an unusual situation and I didn't want him to get lost. Charles, wasn't really a foster son, at least not legally. In the mid1920s he was kind of informally "adopted" by this family because he was abandoned by his own. He lived with them, went to school with their children, and was recorded in the census as part of the family (in one census with the family surname, instead of his own). I didn't want him to get lost, so I have listed him as a foster child. Maybe there is a better way of accomplishing this?
  22. This is a great idea; I am wondering if there is a similar technique that could print out children from a marriage in the Individual Journal Report; e.g in the marriage tag sentence structure [P] married [PO] <[PARO]> <[D]> <[L]> [CHILDREN]
  23. Living Flag

    I have a question about the living flag. If I understand correctly, TMG is set to set the living flag to "N" for any person who would be 110 years or older. Yet, I find people older than that (e.g. born 23 December 1894, or 123 years old) with the flag still at to "?" I had thought that the program would have reset this flag to "N" when that person reached 100 years of age, or in this case 2014. Is there something I should be doing to cause this change to the flag to occur, or will I have to manualy reset all of these people (more than 6000) manually? I am interested as I am wanting to run several reports, and do not what those who are probably decesed (e.g. born before 1900) and with a Living Tag set to "?" to be left out of the report. thanks
  24. Living Flag

    Thanks, that makes sense.
  25. A curious thing happened today; my project file disappeared. I was at the Medwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri, using TMG v9 to manage my research. When I shut down, I backed-up TMG, and copied the backup file to a thumb drive. When I got home this evening, I turned on my laptop, opened TMG, and the project file was gone. On the opening screen, the box for selecting a project file was darkened. I tried searching for the file using the file extension, but could find nothing. I was able to restore from the backup, but now I am wondering how this could have happened. If anyone has any ideas how I managed this, I would like to avoid it another time.
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