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Donald Joseph Schulteis

Why Is This Person In My Project?

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The Master Genealogist supports the user to be able to identify a focus person in Preferences=>Current Project Options=>Other and once done, the detail window will identify how the viewed person is related to the focus person.

 

Quite often, as I am working on the details of a person, I say to myself, who is this person? I look to the top of the details window and it tells me the person is not related. The next obvious question that comes to mind, why is the person here? That is when I become frustrated as I cannot answer it without doing some research. By the way, my project contains information on some 25,000 individuals.

 

Have been using TMG for some fifteen years and this has bothered me from the start, but not near as much as it does now. Back in 1995, it bothers me as does one mosquito buzzing around your ear. Today, it is as though a swarm of mosquitoes are doing so. This put a bit more pressure on me to see if I could do something which might help answer the question, "why is this person here". This is what I came up with.

 

Task A - Established a flag called "relationship" and defined values and their meanings:

 

0 = unknown

1 = descendant

2 = spouse

3 = spouse parent

4 = spouse grandparent

5 = spouse sibling

6 = spouse of spouse sibling

 

Task B - Set Up Base To Determine Relationships.

 

Set up six temporary flags. Only one flag is needed but should you make a mistake at calculating say "4", you can go back to "3" and continue again.

 

The proceed to establish the temporary "flagn" values uses six list-of-people reports and secondary output.

 

Run #1 - is a descendant of ID "NNN" end (set flag1 to Y) (NNN is your progenitor)

 

Run #2 - flag1 = Y end and select "include spouse" ( set flag2 = Y)

 

Run #3 - flag2 = Y end and select "ancestor = 1" (set flag3 = Y)

 

Run #4 - flag3 = Y end and select "ancestor = 1" (set flag4 = Y)

 

Run #5 - flag3 = Y end and select "descendant = 1" (set flag5 = Y) (please note flag3, not flag4)

 

Run #6 - flag5 = Y end and select "spouse" (set flag6 = Y)

 

 

Task D - Establish Relationship Flag Values

 

Using another six list-of-people report and secondary output:

 

Run #7 - set relationship flag to 1 - descendant

flag1 = Y end (set relationship = 1)

 

Run #8 - Set relationship flag to 2 - spouse

flag2 = Y and flag1 = N end (set relationship = 2)

 

Run #9 - Set relationship flag to 3 - spouse parent

flag3 = Y and flag2 = N end (set relationship = 3)

 

Run #10 - Set relationship flag to 4 - spouse grandparent

flag4 = Y and flag3 = N end (set relationship = 4)

 

Run #11 - Set relationship flag to 5 - spouse sibling

flag5 = Y and flag3 = N end (set relationship = 5) (please note flag3, not flag4)

 

Run #12 - Set relationship flag to 6 - spouse of spouse sibling

flag6 = Y and flag5 = N end (set relationship = 6)

 

When I look at the details for an individual in this family line, look at the relationship flag's value, and you immediately know "why this person is here". If the "relationship" flag's value is "0", you know the person is not related to this family line or the person is beyond these relationships.

 

You might want to do this for all your family lines.

 

Task E - Do This For Your Other Family Lines

 

Once a "relationship" value has been set, you don't want to downgraded it, say from a descendant in one family line to a a spouse of a descendant on another.

 

As you go through your other family lines, you don't need to change anything in runs 1-6 other than the starting progenitor. You do though need to change the filter for runs 8-12 because of the possible downgrading potential.

 

Run #8 - flag2 = Y and flag1 = N and (relationship = 0 or relationship comes after 1) (set relationship = 2)

Run #9 - flag3 = Y and flag2 = N and (relationship = 0 or relationship comes after 2) (set relationship = 3)

Run #10 - flag4 = Y and flag3 = N end (relationship = 0 or relationship comes after 3) (set relationship = 4)

Run #11 - flag5 = Y and flag3 = N and (relationship = 0 or relationship comes after 4) (set relationship = 5)

Run #12 - flag6 = Y and flag5 = N and (relationship = 0 or relationship comes after 5) (set relationship = 6)

 

After this relationship flag has been set for all four family lines, you can look at the details for anyone and know exactly how the person fits in.

 

Please note, this is a one time shot. Once completed, and you add a person, that person has not been evaluated and will be assigned a relationship flag value of "0".

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