Linda Reid

Jim, I presume sort dates are treated as data by the database, even if the TMG designers don't think of them that way. It has been recommended that sort dates be used to specify the birth order when we have little information on actual dates, but do have information on which child is older than other children. Putting in a "say" or "estimated" date suggests some logic in choosing the date when regular reports are produced, and we may not want to print out our guesses. In that case, the sort date is useful data for us the TMG users, even if we don't want to pass it off as data to the readers of our reports. It should not be too difficult to add sort dates to the list of fields that can be printed in a tag list. Pierce

Mike, You've been given a number of reasons why birth years may vary from that indicated in the census. Note also that when companies like Ancestry calculate birth year, they simply take the census year and subtract the age of each person. That is quite often off by a year, because many censuses are in the first part of the year, and more than half the people recorded have not had their birthday for that year. My next question is: what are your relative's sources for the birth dates she gave you? If she has copies of the birth registrations, or of parish records (although churches often just record the baptismal date, not the birth date), or of a family bible, those sources are probably better than family stories. But even a family bible may not have been recorded near the time of the event - are all the entries in a similar hand, with the same ink? That would suggest they might have just recorded family stories told some time after the events. Sourcing your information is needed for just this sort of situation. Pierce

I have a number role sentences that use split memo segments. They segments are just referenced as M1, M2, etc. in the sentence templates. Of course, they will have different uses for different sentences, and in any case could be used for whatever makes sense. However, there usually is a purpose for each of the different segments, at least when the sentence is first created. Is there a good way to document what each segment is intended for? That certainly would be useful when wanting to add standard fields into sentences that I am not familiar with. Split memo segments also appear in sentences converted from UFT, where the UFT fields were given specific names on the Event windows. Having standard meanings for each segment would almost be necessary if you wanted to do a global change to the sentence template. Pierce Reid

One further note on my mis-indexed Help file. I have TMG on two computers, with independent installs of the UK edition. The problem seems the same on both. I guess I will take it to TMG support. Pierce

Yes, Jeff, when I change the Language from English (UK) to English (US), the sentences appear. It looks like although I bought and downloaded the UK version, the sentences are undefined in the "UK" language because they are assumed to be in the "US" language. The Queen would not be amused. I presume I can make my changes in the "US" language, but is there some way to copy all the sentences into the "UK" language? I doubt, though, that it would make any difference. Pierce