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genejunky

Marriage Sort in Family Group Sheet

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Hi all:

 

Shouldn't a first marriage, and thus its offspring report in the FGS before a second marriage and those offspring?

I have a FGS report where TMG insists on presenting the second marriage before the first.

The first marriage was entered first, and all of the correct dates are entered for the individuals involved. I've double checked to make sure there were no conflicting sort dates.

The principals first wife died about a year before his second marriage.

 

Help appreciated. --GJ

Edited by genejunky

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The marriages appear in chronological order in every example that I've tried. I'm still looking for an exception.

 

Try a half dozen subjects with multiple marriages and look for a pattern.

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Hi Jim:

 

I don't know that I've discovered the problem, but have discovered something. I have found two cases so far (of the seven I've tested), where the data entry seems correct, but the marriages report out of order on the FGS.

 

On both of them, I went to wife 2 and eliminated her name from the marriage tag. I reran the reports, but wife 2's name still reports, and her marriage reports before the first wife's marriage.

 

If you eleminate the wife from the marriage tag, should not that spouse report without a name on the FGS?

I'm going crazy with re-index and run file integrity. Do I have to keep running both?

--GJ

 

P.S. More strange. When I generate the FGS for the second spouse (who no longer HAS a marriage tag), the spouse still reports.

Edited by genejunky

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Parents are spouses (married or not) in terms of a family. The parents for each child are recorded on the person table and in the relationship table. Killing a marriage does not kill a family.

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Thanks... I'll try removing the spouse from all the children. Then print the reports again. --GJ

 

Parents are spouses (married or not) in terms of a family. The parents for each child are recorded on the person table and in the relationship table. Killing a marriage does not kill a family.

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Okay... I killed off the mother from all of Peter Miller's children by his second marriage. Unfortunately, that family is STILL reporting (without a wife, without any mothers) BEFORE his first wife and their family. Ran file integrity. Same result. Ran reindex. Same result.

 

I'm using Peter Miller, he was not the original principal I was working on when I discovered the problem, but his FGS is much smaller than the other.

 

So... what would cause ALL the motherless children to report BEFORE the first marriage?

 

Suggestions? --GJ

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More strange still.

 

Okay.... I revived Peter Miller's second wife, with no children. Ran the FGS, her now motherless children ALL reported as the first family, Peter's first wife and her family reported as the second family, and his second wife, of course without children, reported as the third family. Everything there cool except those children in the first family.

 

Then, one by one, I added the second wife back as the mother of her children, and ran a FGS after each. She had five children, and with the first four of the children, each FGS showed that family as the last family, that is, until I added her as the mother of her youngest child. When I added her as the mother of her youngest child, Levi, b. c1830, then the entire family became Peter Miller's first family.

 

Okay now, I don't know very much about dear Levi, just that he was b. c1830 and died after his father, who died in 1845.

 

I removed the second wife a Peter's mother. Now Peter's three family are, 1) Levi (motherless family); 2) Peter's first family; 3) Peter's second family.

 

Thughts? Help! --GJ

Edited by genejunky

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BINGO == Problem identified, maybe.

 

Levi's dob (c1830) was entered as a sort date. I first changed the sort date to 1830 (from c1830), then ran the report. No change. Levi is still the first family.

Then I added a date of c1830, and let the sort date be the same. Ran the report again. The "motherless" Levi family changed to family no. 3. In that report, Peter's first family was first, second family was second, and Levi was third.

 

So... I then added Peter's second wife as Levi's mother, and I re-ran the report. All was well. Peter's first family reported first, and the second family, including Levi, reported second.

 

So...... I then went back to Levi and deleted the c1830 dob and used just a sort date. Then I re-ran the report. Bingo... Peter's second family reported first, and his first family reported second.

 

With all this in hand, I went back to my other principal, Maj. Wm Preston, with the 15 children from two marriages. One of the fifteen children I believe is questionalbe, and indeed, that child has a dob entered as a sort date only (after 1811). If I add after 1811 as date (not just sort date), then bingo... the good Maj.'s first wife and family report first and his second wife and family sort second.

 

Okay now Jim. So, I've figured out what caused the problem. I'm not happy if the only solution is to eliminate children with "sort date only" dates of birth. Then again, perhaps I'm confused as I thought the use of sort dates only was acceptable when you really don't know a date. --GJ

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Hi Virginia:

 

The problem seems to be using a sort date _only_ to record a child's birth. It doesn't seem to matter if it's circa, before, or after, or no qualifier.

See the last posting I just finished that starts, "Bingo."

 

Now that I've gotten both Peter Miller and Maj. Wm Preston to print correctly, I'll go back and test all of the above qualifiers.

 

As I wrote in my last post, I'm hoping someone will let me know if using a sort date _only_ for a birth is a no-no.

 

More later. --GJ

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Hi Virginia:

 

I copied my earlier post below. Separately then, I tested for circa, before, and after. I did not find the qualifier made a difference.

In all cases, if I only entered a _sort_ date for a child's birth, the program didn't seem to recognize that date. --GJ

 

 

 

BINGO == Problem identified, maybe.

 

Levi's dob (c1830) was entered as a sort date. I first changed the sort date to 1830 (from c1830), then ran the report. No change. Levi is still the first family.

Then I added a date of c1830, and let the sort date be the same. Ran the report again. The "motherless" Levi family changed to family no. 3. In that report, Peter's first family was first, second family was second, and Levi was third.

 

So... I then added Peter's second wife as Levi's mother, and I re-ran the report. All was well. Peter's first family reported first, and the second family, including Levi, reported second.

 

So...... I then went back to Levi and deleted the c1830 dob and used just a sort date. Then I re-ran the report. Bingo... Peter's second family reported first, and his first family reported second.

 

With all this in hand, I went back to my other principal, Maj. Wm Preston, with the 15 children from two marriages. One of the fifteen children I believe is questionalbe, and indeed, that child has a dob entered as a sort date only (after 1811). If I add after 1811 as date (not just sort date), then bingo... the good Maj.'s first wife and family report first and his second wife and family sort second.

 

Okay now Jim. So, I've figured out what caused the problem. I'm not happy if the only solution is to eliminate children with "sort date only" dates of birth. Then again, perhaps I'm confused as I thought the use of sort dates only was acceptable when you really don't know a date. --GJ

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Hi Jim. Are you able to duplicate my problem by entering moving the date on the birth for child in a second marriage to the sort date in the birth tag (thus leaving the date field blank)?

Note: I am still using 7.02, because of the initial posts by Vista users about the upgrade file; however, I am able to duplicate the problem in otherwise correctly sorting FGS principals.

Assuming you are able to duplicate the problem, then is it a bug in TMG or a bug in me!

Thank you for any assistance you are able to provide. --GJ

Edited by genejunky

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Hi Virginia. Are you able to duplicate my problem by entering moving the date on the birth for child in a second marriage to the sort date in the birth tag (thus leaving the date field blank)?

Note: I am still using 7.02, because of the initial posts by Vista users about the upgrade file; however, I am able to duplicate the problem in otherwise correctly sorting FGS principals.

Assuming you are able to duplicate the problem, then is it a bug in TMG or a bug in me!

Thank you for any assistance you are able to provide. --GJ

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First, from help...

"Sort dates are used solely to maintain chronological order on the Person View and in narrative reports."

 

Put another way, the FGS report is sorted by dates.

 

I see that the family order in the FGS can be changed by the birth dates of the children in the given families and that a blank child birth data can move a family to the front. This has likely worked like this for many years since this is very old code.

 

Changing the Marriage dates also changes the family order in the FGS so a combination of dates are working here. Note that a 'family' might completely lack a Marriage group tag so a missing Marriage group tag would change the order also. I don't see any comprehensive solution that could be applied with the way that things work... (other than by editing the report to change the family order)

 

You wrote: "I am still using 7.02, because of the initial posts by Vista users about the upgrade file"

 

I posted the work-around on the mail list and on the forum...

 

Do the following.

 

1) Right-click on the shortcut that you use to run TMG7.

 

2) Click 'Run as Administrator'.

 

3) If the unlock screen opens, click [Close].

 

4) When the Welcome window opens, click [Exit]

or

When the program starts, exit the program.

 

5) Now start TMG normally and run 'Check for an update'.

 

You do this once and the issue is resolved on that computer.

Edited by Jim Byram

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Thank you X2!

Question here... What am I missing. Should there not be similarity between how TMG digests the information used to generate a FGS and the way it uses the same information to generate a Descendant Indented Chart?

The program has no problem generating an Indented Chart in good order, so it does seem a "bug" that it can't (or won't) use the same "intelligence" to output a FGS.

Sorry to show my frustration, but I love TMG. When I couldn't print for so long, I used Gedcom to share my work (and now still do)....and we know about the marriage shortfall between Rootsweb's gedcom procedures and TMG... When I did print reports, I printed FGS, and I continue to print those reports. Now I'm learning that sorting marriages is also not important for the purpose of FGS.

I'm just disappointed,--not with you, with my ability to find a reasonable approach with TMG for my own SOP.

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Tested more. Changing the Marriage dates also changes the family order in the FGS so a combination of dates are working here. Edited reply above.

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Thanks Jim.

Does this mean that even though it is not a "bug" it qualifies for a "fix?" --GJ

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After further testing, I think that it is a bug. Sort dates are used everywhere else except for the birth date effect on family sorting. If you blank the marriage tag dates, the families are still ordered by the marriage tag sort dates.

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Thanks again.

That is great news.

If I can help at all, please let me know.

Thanks again. --GJ

 

P.S. I report most frequently to the FGS format. I didn't want to disagree with "help" but my other tags do print out on the basis of sort tags. For example, I often have a ton of NAME-VAR tags, but I also have a custom tag called INTRODUCTION. I put noteworthy quotes or poems in the introduction, and like for it to print first. I usually give it a sort date several years before the individual's birth, then give all the NAME-VAR dates between that and the individuals birth--so that I can control the appearance of the FGS, having the little intro print first.

Since all those items, INTRODUCTION and NAME-VAR only have sort dates, it seemed to me that TMG help was incomplete in its description of the sort date.

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Thanks so much for reporting on this Genejunky and to Jim for testing it out. I use the sort date only any time I'm unsure of a birth date to put the child/person in the right chronological order as I think it should be. I am just embarking on a major book project and this would cause all sorts of problems had I not been prepared for it :rolleyes:

 

Hopefully, it will be fixed before I run the final FGS pages.....

 

B)

Joan

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You are most welcome.

So excited for you and your book project. I wish you the _very_ best. --GeneJ

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... it seemed to me that TMG help was incomplete in its description of the sort date.

Yep. I'll add the FGS and ID to that sentence.

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You are most welcome.

So excited for you and your book project. I wish you the _very_ best. --GeneJ

 

Well, it's going to be a huge project - I expect it will take about 5 years. I'm doing it on the McILMOYL(E)s in North America from 1774 and have put out the word to all the family researchers who have any anecdotal info they wish to share to put into the book. It's an interesting family as my 4g-gf packed up from Northern Ireland along with his family, some of whom were young adults and he was 74 years old!!!! Then of course they got caught up in the American Revolution and were supporters of the British and he ended up in Albany Gaol for a couple of years and eventually they all had to flee to Canada. He then had to start all over again and managed to live to 96 years of age!! As he was Scots Irish, I'm not sure if it was all that good Scotch or the Irish Whiskey that contributed <_<

 

B)

Joan

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