jgr

Follow-up: Operator error, of course. The witness statement I should have been looking at was the one for the "with parents" role, not the regular witness statement. The "with parents" role did have an errant period, which has now been removed.

I am using the modified census entry system that makes all family members witnesses to the entry for the head of household. I have an identical witness sentence for the 1920 census and the 1930 census except for the year: [W] appeared on the 1920 census of< [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS]<, at [LD]><, enumerated [D]> in the household of [P] <and [PO]><, [WM]> <[M0]> [W] appeared on the 1930 census of< [LCI],>< [LCN],> [LS]<, at [LD]><, enumerated [D]> in the household of [P] <and [PO]><, [WM]> <[M0]> I know the sentences are identical because I copied and pasted the 1920 census sentence into the 1930 census sentence, changing only the year. Yet, repeatedly, the sentences produce different results: He appeared on the 1920 Federal Census of Haskell Twp., Tillman County, OK, enumerated 28 Feb 1920, in the household of his parents, Clay Rex Cottrell and Opal Robertson Cottrell. He appeared on the 1930 Federal Census of Midland, Midland County, TX, enumerated 17 Apr 1930. in the household of his parents, Clay Rex Cottrell and Opal Robertson Cottrell. Note the comma after the date in 1920 and the period after the date in 1930. I'm baffled. Any ideas? -- jgr

Holly, I was waiting to see if anyone else chimed in who had experience with this. (I was hoping someone else had tried it!) It seems in theory like a perfectly sound concept, and you'll be able to test it thoroughly in the empty project before you try to merge the projects.The one hitch I can think of might be the format of the source reference from Ancestry versus the source format you're already using in your existing project.

You could try: Column 1: Prin1 Given Last Column 2: Prin2 Surname That'd give you FirstName MaidenName MarriedName, no?

The problem is the comma at the start of the phrase produced by the variable [PAR]. I want to produce a simple sentence: John was the son of John Smith and Mary Jones. That apparently can't be done without roles, and that's a royal pain... There are often uses for a simple parentage statement without having it as a subordinate clause to some other fact (in other words, not set off by the comma). And that apparently can't be done without roles, and I'd hate to have to do that every time I want this statement.

I was afraid you were going to say that. Okay... where's the wishlist??? I'd like to add a request for a variable that doesn't add that #$%@# comma!!!

I swear, writing sentences in TMG is going to drive me to drink. What I want to produce is: If both parents known: Person was the son of Father and Mother If only the father is known: Person was the son of Father If only the mother is known: Person was the son of Mother I'd love to be able to use PAR but that produces that #$%@ initial comma: Person was the, son of Father and Mother Is there any way to do this??? Thanks!

I suspect the problem here may be that you're talking in terms of citations, and TMG's terminology for that I think you mean is sources. If I gather correctly, you want to be able to add something new to cite -- a new source of information. That's called a source in TMG, and each time you cite it, that's called a citation. To add a source, drop down the Tools menu at the top, choose Master Source List, and you'll see a box open with a list of all your existing sources. Then choose Add to add one.

Thanks. I'll remember to ask on TMG-L in the future. (I did just figure this out... what I was missing was how to indicate that the date field was blank but still supply a sort date field -- and if I'd just RTFM, I'd have seen before that I need to enter a tab...)

Is there a mail list for John Cardinal's TMG Utility? (I have a question -- how to use Add Events and in doing so add ONLY a sort date and not a date...)

Yup. Both are set to normal compression.

Nope. I literally did a full backup (customizations and all) on computer #1, telling it to backup EVERYTHING. Then I transferred that to computer #2 and did a full restore. In theory, the two should now be identical. So I did a full backup on computer #2, with the identical settings in every way to computer #1, and the size is still different. The only variable I can identify is that one is Win2K and the other is WinXP. Nope. The project was backed up on computer #1, restored immediately on computer #2 then backed up immediately on computer #2 using the exact same settings.

Nope. Just tested it again with absolutely identical full backup (project & customization) settings. Nope. Default cluster size on Win2K and WinXP is the same. Hokay. That's all I need to know. Thanks.

I have a single project I am working on that I'd like to fuss with on two computers. I thought the easiest way to do this would be to do a backup of the project on the main computer and transfer that and restore it on the secondary computer. And ditto in reverse: where changes are made on the secondary computer, do a backup and transfer that and restore it on the main computer. What has me a bit nervous about this is that the backup file size is always different -- and smaller -- on the secondary computer. I can't help but wonder if I'm losing something in the translation. Example: today I backed up the project on the main computer (a W2K Pro system) and the file size was 710,192 bytes. I transferred that to the secondary computer (a WinXP Pro system) and restored it there. Then I immediately backed it up using the exact same backup method (default backup project). The backup on the secondary system was 649,974 bytes. Is this merely a function of the different operating systems, or am I losing data somewhere? And is there a better or safer method of doing this?

You cite it exactly as you would with data viewed at the National Archives (with the roll number etc.), except that you would add a line something to the effect "as viewed online at Ancestry.com" to make it clear where you viewed the record. To view the roll number, look at the results page for the individual (see attached image for an example).