Dan Stone

I have been unable to figure out how to get the place data to appear in the order I wish in Microsoft Word with the indexes TMG generates. For example, let's take Seattle, King County, Washington, United States I would like this to appear in the index generated by Microsoft Word as United States<indent>Washington<indent>King County<indent>Seattle Instead, I am ending up with output such as Seattle<indent>United States, Washington, King County Despite trying several different combinations of settings (such as the Largest Element First option, and the various By City (L3)/By County (L4)/By State (L5)/By Country (L6) options), the greatest number of indent levels I've been able to achieve is two, and I have never gotten the index entries to appear in the correct order from largest element to smallest element. I can manually edit the code in Word to be {XE “United States:Washington:King County:Seattle”} and the index entry that gets generated is exactly like I want, but I can't seem to get TMG to generate the code in this sequence. I'm wondering whether I'm not using the correct combination of settings, or whether TMG is unable to produce the output I'm hoping for. Any suggestions or pointers are greatly appreciated. Thank you, Dan

While it is unfortunate to learn of the end of TMG development, I want to thank Bob Velke and Wholly Genes for the great software that they have supplied for all these years. I wish Bob good health, some well deserved relaxation, and lots of family time, as he mentioned that his health was one of the factors in him deciding to step back from the genealogy community. While the other genealogy software has made advancements, none of them has yet to equal TMG in my opinion. Your contributions to genealogy will be well remembered for many years to come. The publishing of TMG's internal file structure and release of GenBridge to developers is greatly appreciated, and should go a long way to preserving users data by migrating to other genealogy software. In case others have not thought of this option, running some type of virtualization software is another option to prolong the use of TMG. I run TMG on a Mac running Parallels Desktop, and this should allow me to continue using TMG well into the future. Similar virtualization software is available for Windows to allow older Windows operating systems to continue being used, and this should also allow TMG to be utilized for quite some time if someone does not want to change genealogy software, or would like to wait for more advanced software to migrate to.

Thank you, Terry. Much appreciated!

I also noticed Bob mentioned releasing a document detailing the TMG internal file structure, but have yet to locate this document. Does anyone know where it can be found? Thanks in advance.

Well put, and I agree with everything you've outlined in this post.

I've read about the changes to roles between v8 and v9.02, but there are still a couple things that have caught me offguard. Perhaps I've missed the explanation for what I'm experiencing, or perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding something I've read. I'm hoping someone here may have additional information. In v8.08, I have lots of residence tags utilizing the default sentence. I have not utilized any rolenames, and the sentence only uses the "people" position variables [P] and [PO]. Upon restoring my project in v9.02, regardless of whether I choose to run the project update or skip the project update, once the project has been restored in v9.02 the role of Principal has been changed to the role of Housemate and the sentence is [W] was <[P1S]|[P1] and [P2S]> housemate <[D]> <[L]>. This sentence produces the very awkward output of, for example, "John Doe was John Doe's housemate in 1880 in Fremont Township, Clarke County, Iowa." As another example of something that is quite off, when looking at marriage tags of people after the restore operation of my project in v9.02, both Principals have been changed to the role of Bride. I had been under the impression that if I choose to skip the project update, such changes would not occur. Am I misunderstanding, or doing something incorrect? If this is the correct behavior, is there an easy way to change the Housemate role for the Principal(s) in the residence tag back to Principal, or correct the male in a marriage to be Groom rather than Bride? I've also noticed something different in v9.02 in that the Details pane is showing many tags for people that start with "00003;" in the Name/Place field. I haven't found anything yet which explains what this is supposed to be signifying. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Dan

Thank you, Jim. Your help is greatly appreciated. I just sent the backup file to you via email, along with further details, and I will wait to find out what you discover.

Alan, I'm using TMG v8, but have had the same thing happen. To answer Jim's question, in my case, it was with imported data from a gedcom file that was generated by Family Tree Maker 2012. What I found to work was to select the father-bio or mother-bio tag in the tag pane, and then click to make it primary. This removes the extra tag and also preserves the relationship. When I just simply deleted the extra tag in the tag pane, the relationship was lost just as you describe. It seems that the import process is somehow causing the primary mother/father designation to be lost when it adds the additional father-bio or mother-bio tag. Hope this helps, Dan

During the course of merging some duplicate people in my TMG project, I've ended up with people who have additional Father-Biological and/or Mother-Biological tags. Since the person recorded in the additional tag is the same as the father/mother recorded in the father/mother entry at the top of the Details window, I thought it was ok to simply delete the extra tag. Instead, I've discovered that the deletion of the extra tag is also eliminating the link to the father/mother, despite their name still displaying in the father/mother field at the top of the Details window. After deleting the extra tag, if I double click the father/mother field at the top of the Details window, the tag entry screen shows Parent as 0 (zero) instead of the correct TMG ID number for the parent. One result of this is that for any of these instances, my website generated by Second Site will not list a person's parent on their person page, but viewing the person's mini pedigree via the Family Explorer button will correctly show the parent. Not a fault of Second Site, but a fault of my error in deleting the additional Father-Biological and/or Mother-Biological tags. I'm now trying to go back and restore the link to the parents for those people who had additional Father-Biological and/or Mother-Biological tags that I deleted, as well as to find those who still have additional tags that need to be corrected. I've tried generating a List of People report using a variety of filtered group criteria, but have been unsuccessful in finding the right criteria for the two reports I need to run. One report to locate the people who have a parent displaying at the top of the Details window but where the tag entry screen shows Parent as 0 (zero), and another report to locate the people with multiple Father-Biological and/or Mother-Biological tags where I have not yet deleted the extra tag. I'm not sure if a report can even detect the first scenario. Any help, ideas, or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Dan

Thanks for your reply, Jim. Although I thought I had duplicated the problem prior to starting this thread, I have been unable to replicate the problem since seeing your post and checking to see if the relationship tag may not have been marked primary. Not sure what I may have done wrong, but there's a possibility that whatever it was cleared itself upon shut down and reboot. That should have been the first thing I checked, as the few times I've come across what I thought was an anomaly in TMG, a shut down and reboot has resolved the issue. Sorry to have needlessly taken up your time and thanks again for the assistance.

I tried searching for an answer to this, but could not find one. I've ended up with duplicate source types in my project (Cemetery Marker, Cemetery Marker1, and Cemetery Marker2, for example). While it doesn't appear to cause any problems, other than having to remember if you want to modify a source type with duplicates you need to remember to modify both the original and the duplicates, it would be nice to clean this up. I am wondering if there is a way to merge the duplicates together? If not, what would be the easiest/best course of action, or should I just leave things as is? Thanks in advance for any suggestions/answers.

Thanks for the help, Terry and Michael. I had tried to do this on my own, but got nervous when it said it was going to delete all source types based on the one I wished to delete. Rather than proceed, I thought I had better ask here first, just to be safe. I appreciate the thorough explanation and reminder to do a backup first.

Once I've entered DNA test information, for example a Y-DNA 37 test, is there a way to edit the test information to record more markers when the person gets a test upgrade to a greater number of markers? I currently am entering the new upgraded test results from scratch, as I've found no way to edit the existing test results in TMG to a higher test level. Just wondering if I'm missing an easier way to handle the entering of test upgrades? If there's no way to edit existing test information to record the upgraded test results, is there anything wrong with just entering all future tests at the 111 marker level to begin with, leaving the untested markers blank? Thanks for any pointers.

Thanks for verifying this, Jim.

I've been considering an alternate method of entering my sources in TMG after looking at what happens to the sources when exported to GEDCOM and imported into another program. Although Terry has previously presented some great reasons to avoid GEDCOM altogether, I do find value in being able to sometimes share my data through GEDCOM. As we know, exchange of information through GEDCOM has issues, and it seems no matter how careful one is there will always be cleanup necessary after the import into the other program. In some testing I have done, however, with the free basic versions of Legacy Family Tree and Roots Magic, I think I've come across a method which reduces some of that cleanup work. I created a custom source type with both the full footnote and short footnote defined as [TITLE]<,[CD]> and the bibliography defined as [TITLE]. When I add a new source, I select this custom source type, and on the source definition screen create an abbreviation as I normally would, then enter into the title field exactly what I would like my full footnote to appear as. On the output form tab I replace [TITLE] in the short footnote field with exactly how I would like my short footnote to appear, and I replace [TITLE] in the bibliography field with exactly how I would like my bibliography output to appear. In the tests I have conducted, looking directly at the GEDCOM output from TMG shows the title field is output to the GEDCOM exactly as it is input in the title field on the source definition screen. When the GEDCOM is imported into either Legacy Family Tree or Roots Magic, a source is created with a full footnote appearing exactly as entered in the title field on the source definition screen in TMG. The short footnote and bibliography entries appear exactly as the full footnote entry. I'm wondering what I would lose by just entering sources as I've described, rather than the traditional TMG source entry using all the templates with the various source elements. Using the method I've described, it seems the GEDCOM output is more consistent, and the issue of cleanup of short footnote and bibliography fields is no different than the cleanup of these fields required with the import of a GEDCOM using the traditional TMG source entry. For some uses, the issue of cleanup of the short footnote and bibliography fields can even be irrelevant, as using the same output for both full and short footnotes, and not utilizing a bibilography output, can be just fine. I wanted to ask here first, before moving forward with adopting this method, as I certainly may be overlooking something obvious, and I know there are much more experienced TMG users on this forum who can point out the shortcomings of what I'm considering. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Dan

Thank you for your reply, Terry. I always hold your input in high regard, and appreciate you reviewing my alternative source entry method. You're right about me being comfortable with losing the formatting assistance of the built in templates. I had not considered losing the recall feature, as you pointed out, but I think I'll be comfortable with just doing manual cut and paste when necessary. Thanks again, Dan

Although I backup my project everytime I exit The Master Genealogist, I usually never close my project as I have just one. Tonight I closed my project and then reopened it. I got an error message which stated "Must specify additional parameters. 0 SEXOF" with buttons for Abort, Retry and Ignore. I'm wondering if there are any suggestions for resolving this? Thanks in advance, Dan

Jim and Virginia, Thanks for your suggestions and information. Strangely, when I started up TMG today, there was no error message. I used File / Close and File / Open, and still no error. Following Jim's suggestion, I went ahead and did an Optimize, Validate File Integrity and Optimize cycle. Two errors were reported as fixed. I then backed up my project just to be safe. Not sure what changed, other than exiting TMG and shutting down the computer last night, and then restarting today, but everything now seems fine *knocking on wood*. If the error returns, I will report back, otherwise consider the problem resolved. Thanks again, Dan

Looks good, and something that I certainly will make use of. Thanks for making this available, Dan

Since nobody else has responded, I'll throw in my two cent's worth. In my experience, 640 x 480 produces a nice size image without undue scrolling being required. This is based on running my monitor at 1024 x 768. Hope this helps, Dan

I'm hoping that I'm just missing something simple here, but I can't seem to figure this problem out, and I couldn't locate an answer in a search. I am selecting multiple end of line ancestors for a journal report. Everything is fine, except that the page numbers start over at one (1) for each different end of line person, which makes it rather confusing in the index that's generated (for example, page 3 may get referenced twice in the index for someone, as it's the third page from two different ancestor's sections). Is there any way to have the page numbers just continue on throughout the entirety of the report? Hopefully, my question is making sense. I am using TMG v7, in case it makes any difference. Thanks in advance, Dan

Just curious, as to what the suggestion is for recording place names, in the portion of Virginia that later became West Virginia. The standard recommendation is always to record place names as they were at the time of an event. Since there was a few year period of time between when this area decided to succeed from Virginia, and when this area became the state of West Virginia, what would you refer to this area as during that time? In my reading on the state history, I've yet to come across anything that clarified what the area was known as during this period other than either Virginia or West Virginia. If there is no other name for the interim time period, what would you suggest as the date to begin referring to this area as West Virginia (date of succession, date of statehood, other)? I'm not trying to be overly strict, but I have several ancestors with events in this area during the time of the Civil War and am just trying to get things recorded as correctly as possible. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks, Dan

Today was the seminar I attended at which Barbara Vines Little was the guest speaker, so I got a chance to ask for her take on this question. I like the approach she suggested. She said that anytime she documents an event, for the Virginia counties which eventually became West Virginia, during the time between the announcement of the intention to secede and the admittance of West Virginia as a state, she uses parenthesis around West for clarification that we are aware of the transition: (West) Virginia Hope others may find this helpful.

I realize this is slightly off topic, and I'm not trying to take anything away from Wholly Genes, but I seem to recall some people asking for an electronic version of Evidence Explained, and some discussion to the effect that it would not be available. After reading this before, I sent an email to the publisher, and they were kind enough to let me know that Footnote.com would be making an electronic version available. I just received an email back letting me know that it's now available, and I've just purchased a copy. As I mentioned, in thanking them for letting me know that it was available, this will be much easier to take on genealogy field trips with the laptop. Hopefully, some others here may find this to be equally useful. Perhaps Wholly Genes may even get to offer the electronic version as well. Dan

Take a look at Second Site (www.johncardinal.com/ss). It is an excellent program for making a website out of your TMG data, and I think you'll find it to do exactly what you're hoping to accomplish. John (the author of Second Site) is a frequent contributor here.