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Grimesgang

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Everything posted by Grimesgang

  1. Margins in Narratives

    Translation? Can this be an add-on or external utility to TMG?
  2. US Census Source

    I'm curious about something shown in Terry's TMG Tips, but I put it out here because I figure the structure came from either requests or researcher experience. How important is the Enumeration District (or ED) as part of a US Census source reference? Most of my research work has been in older censuses (1880 and older), where it seems like the ED coincides with the state. To date I have not kept that information. I have been more concerned with page number(s), dwelling and house numbers, and even the household's starting line number than the ED. Are there multiple ED's on a single roll of film? Does the general research populace (all of you out there) use this normally?
  3. Sorry - I realize that, but I just hit "reply" and yours was the last post. Actually, it was in answer to erniej saying thumbs hadn't worked well for him. Personally, since my once wonderful laptop (1GHz w/ 20GB HD) is now on the slower and smaller storage side of the spectrum, I have been toying with the idea of a USB HD myself. I use thumb drives right now for backup and have had no problems, but my data represents work going back to 1975, so I'm in no hurry to lose it. That happened once with a HD crash 15 years ago, and I only saved it by having everything printed on hard copy. Today that would be nearly impossible. Now, if I used a USB HD, would I put the entire TMG on it, or just the data files?
  4. OK, what would be the difference between a thumb drive and an external USB drive? They both work through USB; it's just that one has a physical HD spinning and the other is pure e-memory.
  5. I'm surprised (and a little saddened) to hear that thumb drive storage doesn't work. I haven't tried it myself, but I would think it should work.
  6. Wishlist Item

    I am rather new in using the Project Explorer (as I was enticed to try it by the screen layout thread), and I noticed something that is rather irritating, Though not a crisis. When I drag the right hand slide bar down to move down the Project Explorer list, nothing happens until I let go of the slide bar. Then the list jumps down to the equivalent point. If I am trying to go from "B" names to "M" names, moving down the slide is a pure guess as to how far I've gone. What would be nice is if the list followed the slide bar. As the bar gets dragged down, the list moves down as well.
  7. Wishlist Item

    Well, that does work, at least tolerably well. However, it still causes you to hunt and peck even once you get to the right letter if you have any kind of a database. Also, the Easy Search bar takes up a a lot of room, especially on my laptop screen, since I've brought in all the other stuff from the layouts thread.
  8. My new favorite layout

    OK - I had been pushing the Print Screen button, but I couldn't figure out what to do from there. I did the paste into PhotoFiltre (a shareware photo program) and JPG'ed it from there. Let's see how it works. Thanks for the info, Teresa. I'm still not sure how valuable the Focus Group would be to me yet, but I'll try to absorb your description. I'll have to play with the custom buttons to see how they work.
  9. My new favorite layout

    This thread has been excellent and quite an eye-opener for me. I’ve seen several things I’d like to incorporate into my layout (if I can find the space). However, this thread has also brought up some questions, both for individuals and more general. 1. Everybody – how do you make these neat thumbnails? I have looked all over TMG and Windows XP, and cannot find out how to do that anywhere. Granted, my layout is no great thing next to what I’ve seen, but this seems to be a useful thing for passing some info. 2. Everybody – What is the purpose of the Focus Group? I’ve read the section in the TMG Guide about it, and still cannot see how it is useful. Then again, I learn far better by visual and example rather than a written description only. Can anybody give me examples on how it is used? 3. Teresa, Janis (and others) – Your custom toolbar is extensive, but what do all those buttons do? It looks like they are names of tags, but if you explain, that would help. 4. Lorna – I really like your use of Flags, particularly for keeping track of some standard research activities. Are there other ways you use the Flag info? 5. DeAnna – What does your “Correspondent” flag signify? I am also curious about other peoples’ custom tags, flags, and tool buttons, but if I get some replies for the above, I should be able to get creative from there. Now all I need to do is find enough room on my laptop screen without using a magnifying glass. Thanks for all the great examples, people!
  10. OK, here's another attempt by me to bend this TMG into something it doesn't do. I have a source that refers to an online archive of Mennonite obituaries that were transcribed from the original newspapers in the 1800s. It is under the general structure of an obituary/newpaper item. Under the Supplemental (Memo) tab, I entered "a newspaper for the various Mennonite communities throughout several states". Now is the tough part. I use a custom "Obituary" tag mentioned in another thread here. I use the sentence structure: [:CR:][:CR:][PG] <had|and [PO] had> an obituary< that appeared [D]>< in [L]><, [sOURCE MEMO]>: [TAG MEMO] My problem is that, while the tag memo information shows up (which is the entire transcribed obituary), I can find no way to point the sentence structure at the source to print the source memo information. I don't really want to write the source supplementary description every time I put in a tag. Is there a way to access both memos in a sentence?
  11. Multiple Memo Attempted Usage

    Actually, that may open my eyes some. I have been looking at the sentence structure as being separate from the tag, where it would be able to use variables from sources as well as citations. Instead, it is really part of the tag. There you go, throwing more flexibility into the mix again! Your suggestion does raise an interesting possibility, though. I'll have to mull that one over. Why should it be in the History group, though? My Obituary tag now is in the Burial group; have I created a problem for myself doing that? I see the relationship from a tag to its citations as a one-to-many relationship, and the citation to its source as a one-to-one relationship. Therefore: [Tag1]-->[Cit1]-->[src1] would be an interconnected group which could essentially be treated as a "macro-variable", with any part (tag/cit/src) being able to use any variable from any of those parts. This temporary interconnectedness should not (in my concept) cause any conflict with any other interconnected group, since the variables of each part would sit on their own little "cit island" or "src island", waiting to be picked up and connected together in a different combination. That way, you could also have [Tag1]-->[Cit2]-->[src2] being a second combination, just as easily as you could have [Tag1]-->[Cit3]-->[src1], which would be a second citation pointing at the first source, since each group would merely take a copy of the information for each citation or source. All that aside, though, I think I need to refresh my knowledge of the contents of Bibliographies. Rather than have a single biblio entry for a newspaper where I get information from multiple volumes, I'm thinking I need an entry for each volume. True? Since I don't have an APA citation guide in front of me, or even a copy of Lackey or Mills, I'll need to dig that up.
  12. Multiple Memo Attempted Usage

    Yes, I can see why you'd be confused. I probably stated it badly, but I said that I am putting the text of the obituary in the tag memo area, not in the source. I wanted merely to use the source memo (Supplemental tab) as a descriptor of the newspaper, especially since it is not a standard city newspaper, but one put out by a group. What I am quickly discovering as I finally jump into using TMG (instead of just dabbling) is that what intimidated me before as being too flexible to pick a structure to follow and do it "right", is now seeming too inflexible to supply what I am looking for in creating a structure to do it logically. I must just have too much computer programmer in me to understand (or maybe accept) limitations of variables.
  13. Multiple Memo Attempted Usage

    I know those weren't valid variables. I put them there (and put them in bold) as descriptors to show what I wanted to do. As for obituary text in the source rather than in the tag, I was trying to prevent having thousands of obituary "sources", many of which are from the same newspaper, just from different publication dates over several decades. I wanted to have ONE source (the newspaper Herald of Truth), then I would put the actual volume and issue in the citation detail [CD], which would hopefully come out on the footnotes and bibliography (I haven't confirmed that yet; that's a different issue), and I would have the text of the obituary in the Obituary tag, which connects to the person. Trying to use the Supplemental Source memo to further describe the newspaper in the sentences is a nicety that will make the narrative flow, rather than being choppy, as most of my sentences are so far. Part of this goes back to my old issues with sources (and the ongoing debate). I see no reason to have multiple sources from one thing ( particularly a newspaper or other repetitive published medium) rather than having it listed as a source once, then designating the individual issue/published work within a citation, which will then show separately in the footnotes and bibliography.
  14. In running through many of the reports, I found an issue with the Descendant box report. The bar showing the progress of the report gets to about halfway, then stops for a bit. Then I get a message saying "Visual Chartform has encountered a problem and needs to close." Under the "more information" note, I see: AppName:vcf.exe AppVer:3.1.0.19 ModName:vcf.exe ModVer:3.1.0.19 Offset: 000df8fe The technical information & hex dump connected with the problem is huge. Finally, if I let it sit long enough without closing it, I get a note from my computer mentioning something about virtual page memory being low. This doesn't happen when I do an ancestor box chart, just the descendant. I've tried closing & re-opening TMG, and even restarting my computer, all with no success. Is it just my database or is this a glitch? The DB is not huge; just a couple thousand people total.
  15. VCF Descendant Box Chart

    Sorry it took me so long to answer. Yes, I'm trying that. I haven't gone all the way down (other subjects, like work, jump in the way), but I seem to be having some luck getting it down into one "arm" of one generation. Eventually I'll probably have an individual I'll need to repair/re-enter or something of the like.
  16. memos not always printing in report

    I was researching how to handle transcribed obituaries, and stumbled across your old thread here. I have a couple questions: * Am I to understand that every transcribed obit you have is in a single Word file? * Do you put a copy of the transcribed obit into the memo field of the obituary tag? * Did you finally eliminate all your problems that were referred to in this thread by moving the [iTAL:] into the memo field?
  17. I am trying to modify the expanded census tag as given in Terry's Expanded Census Tag example. I am working with the 1880 census, where the person's birthplace, along with those of his/her parents is given. I am trying to add that to the Principal role (at least at first). I am using the possessive pronoun for the Principal [PP], but my problem is that there is no possessive pronoun for Principal Other [PO]. I tried being logical (shame on me!) and tried [POP], but that didn't work. My sentence structure is: [PFS] birthplace was <listed as [M3]|not listed>, [PP] father's birthplace was <listed as [M4]|not listed>, and [PP] mother's birthplace was <listed as [M5]|not listed>. [POFS] birthplace was <listed as [M6]|not listed>, [XXX] father's birthplace was <listed as [M7]|not listed>, and [XXX] mother's birthplace was <listed as [M8]|not listed>. My problem is with what I can use for [XXX]. I suppose I can use the possessive of the given ([PFS]/[POFS]) again, but I was trying to make it a little less rote. Is there anything available? On another tack, am I doing this in the wrong way or in the wrong place? Finally, if there ISN'T such an animal as [POP], could that be added to a future upgrade? I would think it would be of use.
  18. Can't find report templates

    I got this error in the past week as well. I re-installed TMG and the error went away. This was on v6.09 for me, before I upped to v6.10.
  19. Possessive Pronoun Usage

    For the example I gave, his/hers works. However, the lack of a possessive pronoun availability for the [PO] variable seems to be a shortcoming in flexibility. Apparently you don't agree.
  20. Possessive Pronoun Usage

    OK, my immediate problem is resolved (I think). Back to the question about the possessive pronoun for [PO]. Does one exist? Should one exist?
  21. Possessive Pronoun Usage

    OK, now that I've read the manual (ouch!), I see that I AM misusing the | symbol. I guess further testing is required. here I thought I had a neat little conditional trick. However, my first question in the original post about possessive pronouns still stands.
  22. Possessive Pronoun Usage

    Here is another piece of confusion. My structures that say "<listed as [M3]|not listed>" all come up saying "not listed", even though I have put information in [M3], etc. with the correct ||symbols. Obviously I am misusing the | symbol, but it makes sense to me. Why doesn't it to the program?
  23. I keep my data largely in FM because of its ability to create a web page. I know that there is a web page creator available for TMG data, but it tends to be largely narrative-based. I am looking for something that puts together information more in family groups, with citation notes available shown and available as links. What attracted me to TMG is the citation feature and tree diagrams. However, the citation feature seems to be so difficult. I've read all the helps (Reigel, et al), and I'm still confused.
  24. Wishlist - Improved Web Page Creation

    Yes, I was referring to Second Site for the web page creator. However, I was NOT aware that any of the bullet formats were available. All the examples I had seen on all the other support sites were narrative-based. I guess I hadn't looked at the right web page (yours) yet. Your link was quite enlightening, and raised my interest level, especially in SS. As for confusion on citations, I am not confused on what a citation (or a source, for that matter) IS, as much as how I should specify them. My confusion is how specific to make a source (entire document vs. individual page or record, entire census vs. specific county, twp, page, etc.) and where I should put information in citations (comments vs. memos vs. body of citation). Sometimes flexibility makes decisions difficult, especially since I am a person who wants to do my research documentation "right", rather than trying it then changing it again later. IOW I am an engineer, rather than a lawyer. I have heavily cited my research that is in Family Matters, but it doesn't translate at all into TMG, and the sources translate badly. That means I must re-enter thousands of citations, and recreate all my sources. Between all the help articles (Riegel, et al) and the TMG help book, I just need to develop the philosophy on citations and sources that will fit my desires on my research. That is probably my biggest confusion. The only way anyone other than myself will be able to help with this is perhaps to show examples of the different styles all together. As for improved web page creation, perhaps you already have it there. However, what I am looking for is having multiple indices (person, family, pictures/exhibits) available for creation; descendant/ancestor chart support and having the names as links to the bullet-point format; and biography/sketch/obituary/other narrative access via link.
  25. I have used Family Matters for years, and have tons of data in it. When I did a GEDCOM import from Family Matters to TMG, it was a nightmare. I have spent months since then trying to clean up place designations, events are all over the place, and all my citations are essentially ignored and must be re-entered (several thousand of them). Sources are jumbled, and FM has a data area known as Chronicles, which is a free-form data area where one can put in any type of character-based information. I use it largely for transcribed obituaries, but anything could be put in. These chronicles end up as some type of weird data type and largely lost in TMG. Pictures do not translate into TMG exhibits. All this needed cleanup is what has kept me from switching to TMG to date. The base of FM is MS Access. I would think that FM should be able to translate far better to TMG than it does, and in a direct way rather than through GEDCOM.
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