Alison

Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately I cannot switch people at all without the open dialog box appearing. I've run optimize several times today alone, and VFI hasn't reported any errors for at least the last 10 times it's been run. Edit: I just opened the sample project and then opened my own project and the problem seems to have disappeared. Hope this helps anyone else experiencing this problem.

I just started having this problem recently as well (after version 7 working normally for quite some time). I have found if you run VFI the problem goes away until you close your project even though VFI reports no errors. Now if I could only make it disappear permanently....

I haven't tried this myself but it looks like TMG Utilities find and replace feature might work. The catch her is that it will find every even with just say 1981 as a sort date and depending on how TMG records date with years only it may be very difficult to find. In my opinion it looks easier to adjust them by hand, at least that's what I tell myself as I've been going back and adding the day into many UK census tags myself.

I asked about this a while back since it seemed like a logical way to handle exhibits, especially since it doesn't need to change how users attach exhibits. I would love it to be based of where you opened the project from but I would even settle for it being based off of the default path set in the preferences. I don't think this would change anything for the average user but it would allow a "quick fix" for people with changing drive letters.

Just to add my support for this idea. I have me project files on me desktop but can access them on my laptop though the network. This way I'm only ever modifying one location and I don't have to worry about where I worked last. As an extra security measure I keep my backups on both computers so even if one of them croaks I have a back-up on the other.

I knew there had to be an easier way.

I did something similar by creating a new role like your parent and then using TMG Utility to change the roles from Mother to Parent and then from Father to parent. Alison

I've made several of these but only with substantial editing in Visual Chartform (VCF), the rough steps are outlined below, if you need more clarification let me know. 1) create multiple descendent box charts, one for each family at the end of the line. I usually create one for each male end of line but there are a few cases where I know mothers and not fathers. 2) In VCF create a new blank chart and make the diagram size much larger than you need. I tend to go for at least 100x100 but on large families have started even bigger. 3) Now the real fun starts. Use the charts created in step one to copy and past into your new chart. I usually copy the fist one completely and then only copy "new" additions from the others. This will involve a good deal of puzzling to make it match especially if you want to avoid duplicate people. 4) Once you have everyone in the cart you'll need to move it to the upper left of the diagram, remove the excess space, align all the boxes, etc. As you can probably tell even after making about 10 of these it still takes me several hours for a basic chart and several days for a larger more detailed chart. However, I've found them very useful to show relatives more interesting family connections, and recent generations. If anyone knows of a shorter method I would love to hear. Alison

I have no idea what the prefered method is but personally I make neither of them primary until I have more information. This serves as a reminder that there is work to be done on this line but still shows the sources other researches have worked with. Of coarse I tend to error on the side of caution and rarely add anyone to the tree that I can't cite a source I've personally seen or an interview I've conducted so I may take the overly cautios route when it comes to others work. Alison

Tiffs are also good for official records (ie. non photos), are about the same size as PDF's, attach as an image, display in most web browsers, and don't loose information lake jpegs. For photo's jpegs are still my choice for attaching but I usually keep a bitmap in a separate file in case I need an original scan again sometime. Alison

I think I have a tendency to over record census data in the citations but I tend to use the city field for everything that doesn't fit uniquely into an other field. For example I might have "Jefferson Twp., Stone Creek Post Office, North of Phillipsburg" or "Streator, ward 4, Precinct A" as cities. It does make my citations longer but it also makes locating "non-towns" or old street addresses easier.

For what it's worth I've been lumping evrything I can for this reason but exhibits can be very frustrating to work with this way. My new method, if only I can get evrything moved over, is to lump census records and attach exhibits to the citation detail but make certificate, wills, deeds, etc. seperate entries and attaching the scan to the source entry. It may make a longer bibliography but it will also make it esier to quickly see which original records I have and where I've had to substitute or need to do more research. Just my two cents.

I did something similar to post my data on Rootsweb and plan to use it once I get Second site as well. The nice thing is you can include whatever information you want in the memo. In a few cases I also put things like, "two sons and a daughter who married into the Smith family" I'm sure I'll tweak my sentence some more myself, but so far I'm pleased with the method. Alison

This is really helpful for tracking changing place names. The warning is often enough for me to catch my mistakes. I don't think it will help here but TMG Utility does have some features relating to places.

It is an option for output in the silver edition for list of reports, though I haven't tried it yet to double check it works, but you will at least see it.